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xPack GNU M4 v1.4.19-3 released

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

Version 1.4.19-3 is a maintenance release, built with the latest tools.

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@1.4.19-3.1 -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 28 May 2021.

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.

For the prerequisites and more details on the build procedure, please see the Maintainer Info 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:

85db52443bf0011827b5422a3280905a00d8b5b308799d801d0b1239fe53d072
xpack-m4-1.4.19-3-darwin-arm64.tar.gz

d377b57ffce461bc8d445cda806ee9dc4a6ac5788e61c1c8fe582dacc444efb6
xpack-m4-1.4.19-3-darwin-x64.tar.gz

2be4d9ab2e5dbd8fe7b2ca4622ffb2b82a34c634b1f0aba827d3202a7be120ad
xpack-m4-1.4.19-3-linux-arm.tar.gz

efffb0c84f80db1331781cf62b6698b68f359fa673ab9d700113e45e471b6ba3
xpack-m4-1.4.19-3-linux-arm64.tar.gz

cc91f42a22c500193419f98e6faae1333bb51c90e53374b28d0ba8149d065d63
xpack-m4-1.4.19-3-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.

Pre-deprecation notice for Ubuntu 18.04​

Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Bionic Beaver reached the end of the standard five-year maintenance window for Long-Term Support (LTS) release on 31 May 2023.

As a courtesy, the xPack GNU/Linux releases will continue to be based on Ubuntu 18.04 for another year.

From 2025 onwards, the GNU/Linux binaries will be built on Debian 10, (GLIBC 2.28), and are also expected to run on RedHat 8.

Users are urged to update their build and test infrastructure to ensure a smooth transition to the next xPack releases.

Download analytics​

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