haskell-mode needs cl-lib on Emacs23

[PinkMushroom]

Debian wheezy emacs 23 does not seem to have cl-lib

So a fresh install of haskell-mode fails

Cannot open load file "cl-lib"

AFAICT this seems to be a problem in emacs23 only.

[gracjan]

True, haskell-mode requires cl-lib to be present. The easy way is to install cl-lib on Emacs 23.

As far as I know Emacs 23 lacks also a default package manager and that means we do not know what kind of way to get cl-lib to advice.

[gracjan]

@PinkMushroom: what do you suggest we do?

[gracjan]

We have this: https://github.com/haskell/haskell-mode/blob/master/haskell-mode-pkg.el.

How did you install haskell-mode on Emacs 23?

[PinkMushroom]

i installed using git clone/make

as for suggestions: i'm not too familiar with installation of emacs package, but maybe

• include the appropriate cl-lib as part of the distribution
• add "you need cl-lib for emacs23" to the readme

i believe there's an issue that if cl-lib is included as part of the distribution by default there might be conflicts with emacs24. someone more knowledgeable than I will have to let me know if that's a problem.

obviously, at this point, i'm volunteering to test the solution :-)

[gracjan]

We distribute cl-lib along haskell-mode for tests under Emacs 23. It is in tests/compat/cl-lib.el. You may take it from there. If you know what kind of instructions would make it clear to Emacs23 users please create a pull request with changes to README.md. I could invent something but that would be guessing so you are a better person to write it. Have you considered upgrading Emacs? It's free, you know...

[PinkMushroom]

i would love to upgrade emacs but would not love upgrading debian to unstable to do it...
ok-i'll work on some verbage

[geraldus]

@PinkMushroom you don't need to upgrade Debian to unstable branch, because you can use backports to install Emacs24 easily. Here is quick instructions:

For wheezy add this line:

deb http://http.debian.net/debian wheezy-backports main

to your sources.list (or add a new file with the ".list" extension to /etc/apt/sources.list.d/) You can also find a list of other mirrors at https://www.debian.org/mirror/list
Run apt-get update.

Now you can install Emacs24 package (GTK+) [1] or Emacs24-Lucid [2] or even Emacs24-nox without GUI support [3]
[1] https://packages.debian.org/wheezy-backports/emacs24
[2] https://packages.debian.org/wheezy-backports/emacs24-lucid
[3] https://packages.debian.org/wheezy-backports/emacs24-nox
using following command:
aptitude -t wheexy-backports install Emacs24
or
ap-get install -t wheezy-backports install Emacs24.

[PinkMushroom]

oops. i shouldn't have closed. So here is my suggestion

@geraldus yes- i could use backports - but still - are there users that for whatever reason will be stuck with emacs23 ? then they will want to know how to get things working.

regardless I'm trying to figure how to create a pull request with the note added to the README.md.

[geraldus]

@PinkMushroom btw, Jessie has been released yesterday.

[PinkMushroom]

ok. i created the pull request....

[gracjan]

Closed via #632.

[gracjan]

@PinkMushroom: Thanks!