Porting GHC to Haiku

This builds on previous work for GHC-7.8.3, but is a clean port on top of GHC-8.6, including cross-compiling.

Currently, we only have GHC for 32-bit Haiku, as there are issues with how GHC creates relocations with PIC on 64-bit Haiku, preventing linking from succeeding.

Building the Haiku Cross-Compiler

I have created a repo to ease the task of building a Haiku cross-compiler and associated sysroot (where build dependencies are unpacked).

git clone https://github.com/jessicah/cross-compiler
cd cross-compiler
export CROSSTOOLS=$(pwd)
./build-rootfs.sh x86_gcc2h

This will result in two cross-compilers, the gcc2 compiler we don't need, and the gcc4+ compiler. Due to Haiku's system layout, we need to build it this way. We'll also have a generated package_extract.sh wrapper script for the package command, which we'll use for unpacking build dependencies.

The page with up-to-date links to packages we'll need is available at: https://eu.hpkg.haiku-os.org/haikuports/master/x86_gcc2/current/packages/

We will need to download the following packages (versions omitted):

• libiconv_x86.hpkg
• libiconv_x86_devel.hpkg
• ncurses6_x86.hpkg
• ncurses6_x86_devel.hpkg

for file in *.hpkg; do
  $CROSSTOOLS/package_extract.sh $file
done

Also, update PATH to include our needed cross-compiler: export PATH=$CROSSTOOLS/generated/cross-tools-x86/bin:$PATH

Building the GHC Cross-Compiler

I recommend using a Linux machine with GHC-8.6; ghcup is recommended for obtaining a GHC-8.6 install.

Install ghcup from https://www.haskell.org/ghcup/, then install GHC with ghcup install ghc 8.6.5.

You'll also need to install alex and happy with cabal:

• cabal install happy --constraint 'happy < 1.20'
• cabal install alex

There are also a couple of patches to apply, in the source directory:

• patch -Np1 < ../patches/0001-haiku-add-support-for-8.6.patch
• pushd libraries/directory && patch -Np1 < ../../../patches/0001-haiku-add-platform-app-data-location.patch && popd
• pushd libraries/Cabal && patch -Np1 < ../../../patches/0001-haiku-add-platform-support.patch && popd

And then we can start building:

perl boot
./configure --target=i586-pc-haiku
make
make binary-dist

You'll end up with a tarball that you can copy to your Haiku install and install:

setarch x86
./configure --prefix=/boot/home/config/non-packaged
make install

Building GHC on Haiku

---

Now let's build a self-hosted compiler on Haiku...

This requires alex and happy to be installed, so I have used versions alex-3.1.7 and happy-1.19.12, which appear to function okay thus far.

wget https://hackage.haskell.org/package/happy-1.19.12/happy-1.19.12.tar.gz
tar zxf happy-1.19.12.tar.gz
cd happy-1.19.12
runhaskell Setup.hs configure
runhaskell Setup.hs build
runhaskell Setup.hs install

cd ..

wget https://hackage.haskell.org/package/alex-3.1.7/alex-3.1.7.tar.gz
tar zxf alex-3.1.7.tar.gz
cd alex-3.1.7
patch -Np1 < ../../patches/0001-remove-quickcheck.patch
runhaskell Setup.lhs configure
runhaskell Setup.lhs build
runhaskell Setup.lhs install

Then need to install the cross-compiled binary distribution:

# Download the release for your target architecture:
# export ARCH=i386
# export ARCH=x86_64
wget https://github.com/jessicah/haiku-ghc/releases/download/v8.6.5-1/ghc-8.6.5-$ARCH-unknown-haiku.tar.xz
tar xJf ghc-8.6.5-$ARCH-unknown-haiku.tar.xz
cd ghc-8.6.5-unknown-haiku
boot
./configure --prefix=/boot/home/config/non-packaged
make install

And then the rest is similar to cross-compiling with a source tarball...

boot
./configure --prefix=/boot/home/config/non-packaged
make

For x86_64, only an "unregisterised" build currently works, so add the --enable-unregisterised compiler flag when configuring.

The problem with x86_64 is tracked at https://gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/ghc/-/issues/17338