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xPack GNU M4 v1.4.19-2 released

· 4 min read
Liviu Ionescu (ilg)
Liviu Ionescu (ilg)

Version 1.4.19-2 is a maintenance release, built with the latest build scripts.

The xPack GNU M4 is a standalone cross-platform binary distribution of GNU M4.

There are separate binaries for macOS (x64 and arm64) and GNU/Linux (x64, arm64 and arm).

Raspberry Pi

The main targets for the GNU/Linux Arm binaries are the Raspberry Pi class devices (armv7l and aarch64; armv6 is not supported).

Download​

The binary files are available from GitHub Releases.

Prerequisites​

  • x64 GNU/Linux: any system with GLIBC 2.27 or higher (like Ubuntu 18 or later, Debian 10 or later, RedHat 8 or later, Fedora 29 or later, etc)
  • arm64/arm GNU/Linux: any system with GLIBC 2.27 or higher (like Raspberry Pi OS, Ubuntu 18 or later, Debian 10 or later, RedHat 8 or later, Fedora 29 or later, etc)
  • x64 macOS: 10.13 or later
  • arm64 macOS: 11.6 or later

Install​

The easiest way to install this specific version, is by using xpm:

xpm install @xpack-dev-tools/m4@1.4.19-2.1 --verbose

Comprehensive instructions for installing xPack GNU M4 on different platforms can be found in the Install Guide.

Compliance​

The xPack GNU M4 generally follows the official GNU M4 releases.

The current version is based on:

  • GNU M4 version 1.4.19 from 2021-05-28.

Changes​

Compared to the upstream version, there are no functional changes.

Bug fixes​

  • none

Enhancements​

  • none

Known problems​

  • none

Documentation​

The original documentation is available online.

Build​

The binaries for all supported platforms (Windows, macOS and GNU/Linux) were built using the xPack Build Box (XBB), a set of build environments based on slightly older distributions, that should be compatible with most recent systems.

The scripts used to build this distribution are in:

  • distro-info/scripts

For the prerequisites and more details on the build procedure, please see the README-MAINTAINER page.

CI tests​

Before publishing, a set of simple tests were performed on an exhaustive set of platforms. The results are available from:

Tests​

TBD

Checksums​

The SHA-256 hashes for the files are:

59b0a9c31d73141af330f405e4edd134f9788a3efc96ab3e33f4bcde77012769
xpack-m4-1.4.19-2-darwin-arm64.tar.gz

72bbe3c968e235b81cf9b06d2c2dffd227440c1c479710a0574bd2ac9ea258fc
xpack-m4-1.4.19-2-darwin-x64.tar.gz

def94610124b970243d6c82b1c187c6d121670fe4662788fcd51c93d9398cc45
xpack-m4-1.4.19-2-linux-arm.tar.gz

a691b11a79c8eb6ef10f829b738341b560c6559f14de4738ca1a8a17b0ac84ed
xpack-m4-1.4.19-2-linux-arm64.tar.gz

b15b3521c678b2e762d1156b01b9bbe0474e8f88f044de0783b0fb1da00c4a00
xpack-m4-1.4.19-2-linux-x64.tar.gz

Deprecation notices​

32-bit support​

Support for 32-bit x86 GNU/Linux and x86 Windows was dropped in 2022. Support for 32-bit Arm GNU/Linux (armv7l) will be preserved for a while, due to the large user base of 32-bit Raspberry Pi systems.

GNU/Linux minimum requirements​

Support for RedHat 7 was dropped in 2022 and the minimum requirement was raised to GLIBC 2.27, available starting with Ubuntu 18, Debian 10 and RedHat 8.

Download analytics​

Credit to Shields IO for the badges and to Somsubhra/github-release-stats for the individual file counters.