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xPack Meson Build v1.3.2-1 released

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

Version 1.3.2-1 is a new release; it follows the upstream release.

The xPack Meson Build is a standalone cross-platform binary distribution of Meson Build.

There are separate binaries for Windows (Intel 64-bit), macOS (Intel 64-bit, Apple Silicon 64-bit) and GNU/Linux (Intel 64-bit, Arm 32/64-bit).

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 Windows: Windows 7 with the Universal C Runtime (UCRT), Windows 8, Windows 10
  • x64 macOS: 10.13 or later
  • arm64 macOS: 11.6 or later

Install​

The full details of installing the xPack Meson Build on various platforms are presented in the Install Guide.

Compliance​

The xPack Meson Build generally follows the official Meson Build releases.

The current version is based on:

  • Meson Build release 1.3.3 from 13 Feb 2024.

Changes​

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

Bug fixes​

  • none

Enhancements​

  • none

Known problems​

  • none

Embedded Python​

To simplify dependency management, this release embeds a Python 3.11.8 instance.

The meson executable is a standard ELF/EXE which includes the Python run-time; the main() function prepares the Python environment and then invokes the Meson main:

  PyRun_SimpleString("from mesonbuild import mesonmain\n");
  PyRun_SimpleString("sys.exit(mesonmain.main())\n");

The Python library is located in the standard location:

  • lib/python3.11
  • lib/python3.11/lib-dynload (the platform dependent files)

The Meson files are located in:

  • lib/python3.11/mesonbuild

To speed up execution, all Python files are compiled and are available only as .pyc.

Documentation​

The original documentation is available from:

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:

Checksums​

The SHA-256 hashes for the files are:

0c50fa99e4f33037fe4bc1e9f1ba7474a55e89d7b33edf051782ddbc9ea725d4
xpack-meson-build-1.3.2-1-darwin-arm64.tar.gz

1a927a5e4fe036dbf20364f90fd52125bb5fa7d87ecd39d7b7caa26c8364070a
xpack-meson-build-1.3.2-1-darwin-x64.tar.gz

544a4a84882f007ac2526e8f18ea6b9aba817defb8fccf781481c67b1c1e0aa9
xpack-meson-build-1.3.2-1-linux-arm.tar.gz

e8a281bb166854bb8693c1a2f2fcba94fe36685e68f47edb3479bc585b1f81e6
xpack-meson-build-1.3.2-1-linux-arm64.tar.gz

f3924f1af34267262f230bc84957798bc4965acd86adcb74e070d335621310f0
xpack-meson-build-1.3.2-1-linux-x64.tar.gz

04417fe8a1cecc8d003a66d9ecb4a6641a6ee330f01920036d96f1979c17d75c
xpack-meson-build-1.3.2-1-win32-x64.zip

Deprecation notices​

Linux minimum requirements​

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

32-bit support​

Support for 32-bit Intel Linux and Intel Windows was dropped in 2022.

Pre-deprecation notice for 32-bit Arm Linux​

Due to the large user base of 32-bit Raspberry Pi systems, support for 32-bit Arm Linux (armv7l) will be preserved for a little while, but expect it to be dropped by 2025, so it is recommended to consider an upgrade to a RPi 4 or 5 with at least 4 GB (preferably 8 GB) of RAM.

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.