cabal: haskell-gi-base refuses to install - haskell

Question

When I try
$ cabal install gi-cairo
(One of the long list of dependencies to install leksah) I get the following error:
Resolving dependencies...
Configuring haskell-gi-base-0.9...
Building haskell-gi-base-0.9...
Failed to install haskell-gi-base-0.9
Build log ( /home/brandon/.cabal/logs/haskell-gi-base-0.9.log ):
Configuring haskell-gi-base-0.9...
Building haskell-gi-base-0.9...
Preprocessing library haskell-gi-base-0.9...
src/Data/GI/Base/Attributes.hs:105:8:
Could not find module `Data.Proxy'
It is a member of the hidden package `tagged-0.8.5'.
Perhaps you need to add `tagged' to the build-depends in your .cabal file.
Use -v to see a list of the files searched for.
cabal: Error: some packages failed to install:
gi-cairo-0.1.14.8 depends on haskell-gi-base-0.9 which failed to install.
haskell-gi-base-0.9 failed during the building phase. The exception was:
ExitFailure 1
I see the part about tagged, but where is this .cabal file ? On my machine it's a directory at ~/.cabal/, not a file. And what do I add to this supposed file ?
By the way, the output of cabal --version:
cabal-install version 1.20.0.3
using version 1.20.0.2 of the Cabal library
My goal is to install the dependencies output by leksah.sh when I run it:
gi-cairo >=1.0.6 && <1.1,
gi-gdk >=3.0.6 && <3.1,
gi-gdkpixbuf >=2.0.6 && <2.1,
gi-gio >=2.0.6 && <2.1,
gi-glib >=2.0.6 && <2.1,
gi-gobject >=2.0.6 && <2.1,
gi-gtk >=3.0.6 && <3.1,
gi-gtk-hs >=0.3.1.0 && <0.4,
gi-gtksource >=3.0.6 && <3.1,
gi-pango >=1.0.6 && <1.1,
gi-webkit2 >=4.0.6 && <4.1,
haskell-gi-base >=0.18 && <0.21,
haskell-src-exts >=1.13.5 && <1.19,
leksah-server >=0.16.1.0 && <0.17,
ltk >=0.16.0.0 && <0.17,
regex-tdfa >=1.1 && <1.3,
regex-tdfa-text -any,
vcsgui >=0.2.0 && <0.3
I've been trying to solve this since last night, but I don't see anything like this documented anywhere when I Google.
UPDATE: When I try running cabal install leksah, I get the following errors:
Resolving dependencies...
cabal: Could not resolve dependencies:
trying: leksah-0.15.2.0 (user goal)
trying: vcswrapper-0.1.1/installed-1eQ... (dependency of leksah-0.15.2.0)
next goal: transformers (dependency of leksah-0.15.2.0)
rejecting: transformers-0.5.2.0/installed-3Es... (conflict: leksah =>
transformers>=0.2.2.0 && <0.5)
rejecting: transformers-0.3.0.0/installed-ff2... (conflict:
transformers-compat-0.5.1.4:three => transformers>=0.4.1 && <0.6)
rejecting: transformers-0.5.2.0, 0.5.1.0, 0.5.0.1, 0.5.0.0 (conflict: leksah
=> transformers>=0.2.2.0 && <0.5)
trying: transformers-0.4.3.0
next goal: mtl (dependency of leksah-0.15.2.0)
rejecting: mtl-2.2.1/installed-4vs... (conflict: transformers==0.4.3.0, mtl =>
transformers==0.5.2.0/installed-3Es...)
rejecting: mtl-2.1.2/installed-94c..., 2.2.1, 2.2.0.1, 2.2, 2.1.3.1, 2.1.2,
2.1.1, 2.1, 2.0.1.1, 2.0.1.0, 2.0.0.0, 1.1.1.1, 1.1.1.0, 1.1.0.2, 1.1.0.1,
1.1.0.0, 1.0 (conflict: vcswrapper => mtl==2.2.1/installed-4vs...)
Backjump limit reached (change with --max-backjumps).
So I tried cabal install leksah --max-backjumps -1 per the manpage of cabal and after about 10 minutes it's now consuming >40% of the memory of my machine, so I simply can't continue on that route.

Answer 1

The Data.Proxy module moved to the base package in base-4.7.0.0 which was part of the ghc-7.6 series. The haskell-gi-base you are trying to install is also quite old. I expect that it was selected because the newest version that could satisfy the version constraints, but that those version constraints are wrong. Your version of GHC must be older than this.
The solution is to update your GHC and cabal-install. Current version of GHC 8.0.2 and the current version of cabal-install is 1.24.0.2. You need at least version 1.24 of cabal-install when you upgrade to GHC 8. Fortunately the Minimal Haskell Platform comes with an up-to-date GHC, cabal-install, and even stack!