>> By default, GHC statically links all *Haskell* libraries. However, it
>> usually does not statically link *external* libraries, as far as I can
>> tell. Perhaps there's a switch somewhere to make it do that...
>
> Maybe, I don't know. :)

Neither do I. But I know who to ask...

>> (And then, of course, we get into the fun of deciding which libraries
>> should or should not be statically linked. E.g., apparently statically
>> linking glibc is a bad idea.)
>
> Well, glibc is a big library, but if the library you compile against has
> what you need, then it's not really any worse an idea than any other
> library.

According to the research I've done, you really don't want to statically 
link glibc, because it intimately depends on half the low-level stuff in 
the entire system. Just taking one version of glibc and trying to run it 
against the support files for another version tends to break spectacularly.

Similarly, you wouldn't want to statically link the OpenGL libraries, 
because they are specific to your GPU. Similar remarks apply to ALSA, 
apparently. And X11. And a few other things.

Let me see if I can figure out where I read all this... Ah yes, here we go:

http://freegamedev.net/wiki/Portable_binaries

Basically, it seems this stuff is pretty complicated. I suppose package 
managers were invented for a reason, eh? Pity I can't use one to solve 
my problem...

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