# GHC 9.6.1-alpha2 is now available

**URL:** <https://discourse.haskell.org/t/ghc-9-6-1-alpha2-is-now-available/5696>\
**Category:** Announcements\
**Created:** [January 30, 2023, 6:30pm UTC](https://discourse.haskell.org/t/ghc-9-6-1-alpha2-is-now-available/5696 "2023-01-30T18:30:59Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![bgamari](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.haskell.org/bgamari/32/3599_2.png) [@bgamari](https://discourse.haskell.org/u/bgamari)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2023, 6:30pm UTC](https://discourse.haskell.org/t/ghc-9-6-1-alpha2-is-now-available/5696/1 "2023-01-30T18:30:59Z")

</div>

The GHC team is very pleased to announce the availability of GHC 9.6.1-alpha2.  
As usual, binaries and source distributions are available at  
[downloads.haskell.org](https://downloads.haskell.org/ghc/9.6.1-alpha2/).

Beginning with GHC 9.6.1, GHC can be built as a cross-compiler to  
WebAssembly and JavaScript. This is an important step towards robust  
support for compiling Haskell to the Web, but there are a few caveats to be  
aware of in the 9.6 series:

- Both the Javascript and WebAssembly backends are still at an early  
stage of development and are present in this release as a technology preview

- Using GHC as a cross-compiler is not as easy as we would like it to  
be; in particular, there are challenges related to Template Haskell

- GHC is not yet run-time retargetable; a given GHC binary targets  
exactly one platform, and both WebAssembly and JavaScript are considered  
platforms for this purpose. Cross-compilers must be built from source by  
their users

We hope to lift all of these limitations in future releases.

Additionally, 9.6.1 will include:

- Significant latency improvements in the non-moving garbage collector

- Efficient runtime support for delimited continuations

- Improvements in compiler error messages

- Numerous improvements in the compiler’s memory usage

See the [release notes](https://downloads.haskell.org/ghc/9.6.1-alpha2/docs/users_guide/9.6.1-notes.html) for a comprehensive accounting of changes in this  
release.

As always, one can find a migration guide to aid in transitioning from older  
releases on the [GHC Wiki](https://gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/ghc/-/wikis/migration/9.6). We have also recently started  
extending our release process to cover a wider set of Linux distributions. In  
particular, we now offer Rocky 8 and Ubuntu 20.04 binary distributions which  
cover RedHat-derivative and distributions using older `glibc` releases (namely  
2.27), respectively.

Please do give this release a try and open a [ticket](https://gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/ghc/issues/) if you see anything  
amiss.

Cheers,  
~ Ben

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![hasufell](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.haskell.org/hasufell/32/1250_2.png) [@hasufell](https://discourse.haskell.org/u/hasufell)\
**Post date:** [January 31, 2023, 4:28pm UTC](https://discourse.haskell.org/t/ghc-9-6-1-alpha2-is-now-available/5696/2 "2023-01-31T16:28:32Z")

</div>

> **[Comparing eeb1e14e371e87b9ad00a2650a72a12a4347ee0c^...ghc-9.6.0.20230128 ·...](https://github.com/haskell/ghcup-metadata/compare/eeb1e14e371e87b9ad00a2650a72a12a4347ee0c%5E...ghc-9.6.0.20230128)**
>
> GHCup metadata repository. Contribute to haskell/ghcup-metadata development by creating an account on GitHub.

To add the pre-release channel, do:

```haskell
ghcup config add-release-channel https://raw.githubusercontent.com/haskell/ghcup-metadata/master/ghcup-prereleases-0.0.7.yaml 

```

To install the pre-release, do:

```haskell
ghcup install ghc 9.6.0.20230128

```