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# Building darcs

If your distribution provides a pre-built binary package of a recent Darcs release, you are strongly encouraged to use that rather than building Darcs yourself.

If you have (or can install) the Haskell Platform this is the next best option, as this will resolve build dependencies automatically. To download, compile and install Darcs and its dependencies via `cabal-install`, the build tool provided by the Haskell Platform, simply run

    cabal update
    cabal install darcs

If you cannot install the Haskell Platform or `cabal-install`, you need to run

    ghc --make Setup
    ./Setup configure
    ./Setup build
    ./Setup install

This will require the following build dependencies:

- GHC 6.10 or higher; and
- Cabal 1.6 or higher.

Additional build dependencies are declared in the `darcs.cabal` file, and `./Setup configure` will tell you if any required build dependencies aren't found.