How can I upgrade GHC installed using haskell-platform to the latest version in Ubuntu 14.04?

Question

I have installed Haskell Platform in Ubuntu 14.04 using

sudo apt-get install haskell-platform

following the instructions from the official website.

The version of GHC installed as a result is 7.6.3.

I would like to update my version of GHC to a higher version. However, if I do something like

sudo apt-get install --only-upgrade ghc

based on this, I get

ghc is already the newest version.

I suppose separately downloading ghc and installing again can cause problems with other packages installed by Haskell Platform?

How can I correctly upgrade GHC?

Thank you.

Solution

The only way you can get the latest version is to install the Generic Linux version following the directions found here.

0) Always remember to safeguard your system against unintended consequences with a good backup strategy.

1) Download the installation tarball from the page shown below:that matches the architecture of your installation and verify the hash matches with the command sha256sum filename where filename is the name of the file you downloaded.

2) Extract the content of the archive and note where you are extracting to.

3) change to the directory you extracted to in the step above and run the installation script with sudo ./install-haskell-platform.sh

Note: There are further details on the installation page for those of you running Ubuntu 16.10 or higher.

Comments

[Elder Geek]

Welcome to AskUbuntu! As you may have noticed when you visited the site you linked in your post, the only way you can get the latest version is to install it via the directions found here. Always remember to safeguard your system against unintended consequences with a good backup strategy

[GoodDeeds]

@ElderGeek I have installed haskell platform using those directions. However, any attempt to upgrade tells me that it is already in the newest version. Thank you.

[Elder Geek]

You chose the Generic install for 8.03 and ended up with 7.63? That would be exceedingly odd.

[GoodDeeds]

@ElderGeek I am sorry, I had misunderstood your comment, because the first thing I see when I open the link is "Please choose your distribution on the right", which is what I had done before. I will try this now. Thank you.

[Elder Geek]

The apology should be mine. I'm sorry I wasn't clearer the first time around.

[GoodDeeds]

@ElderGeek Thank you, that worked. If you would like to post it as an answer, I will accept it.