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xPack xPack Meson Build v1.8.5-1 released

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

Version 1.8.5-1.1 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 (x64), macOS (x64 and arm64) and GNU/Linux (x64 and arm64).

Raspberry Pi

The main targets for the GNU/Linux Arm binaries are the Raspberry Pi class devices (aarch64 only; armv6 and armv7l are no longer supported).

Download​

The binary files can be downloaded automatically with xpm or manually from GitHub Releases.

Prerequisites​

  • x64 Windows: Windows 7 with the Universal C Runtime (UCRT), Windows 8, Windows 10, Windows 11
  • x64 macOS: 11.0 or later
  • arm64 macOS: 11.0 or later
  • x64 GNU/Linux: any system with GLIBC 2.28 or higher (like Ubuntu 20 or later, Debian 10 or later, RedHat 8 or later, Fedora 29 or later, etc)
  • arm64 GNU/Linux: any system with GLIBC 2.28 or higher (like Raspberry Pi OS, Ubuntu 20 or later, Debian 10 or later, RedHat 8 or later, Fedora 29 or later, etc)

Install​

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

xpm install @xpack-dev-tools/meson-build@1.8.5-1.1 --verbose

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

Compliance​

The xPack Meson Build is based on the official Meson Build sources.

The current version is based on:

  • Meson Build release 1.8.5 from 26 Sep 2025.

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:

8cbabcf86e9e2a66d3219cc024466ab8c124dbd35705d0756aa6ac465f614a8f
xpack-meson-build-1.8.5-1-darwin-arm64.tar.gz

49e48db8dd6878235c31a9fc059353f11a105184fc3ca17fd20d97de7ebcd3ef
xpack-meson-build-1.8.5-1-darwin-x64.tar.gz

e791c9ba3d7110e8fe8bbea66e44a4d6465d34c37e5ca6a1ca2cde1cd50da421
xpack-meson-build-1.8.5-1-linux-arm64.tar.gz

738fc01a882c7de9a1554f0e7e03d20331c428dcb1fe9331fcd1b47d98ca1112
xpack-meson-build-1.8.5-1-linux-x64.tar.gz

b73e23174d1fdc770f8df4edb580955401448ac8aacc5133433742cc2a533e3a
xpack-meson-build-1.8.5-1-win32-x64.zip

Deprecation notices​

GNU/Linux minimum requirements​

The minimum requirement is GLIBC 2.28, available starting with Ubuntu 20, Debian 10 and RedHat 8. Support for RedHat 7 was dropped in 2022. Support for Ubuntu 18 was dropped in 2025.

32-bit support​

Support for 32-bit x64 GNU/Linux and x64 Windows was dropped in 2022 and for 32-bit Arm GNU/Linux in 2025.

Pre-deprecation notice for x64 macOS​

Apple has discontinued support for the x64 (Intel) architecture. GitHub will no longer support this architecture on macOS after the macOS 15 runner image is retired in November 2027; building and testing x64 macOS binaries will become more difficult, requiring a self-hosted runner, and cannot be guaranteed in the long term.

You should begin migrating your projects to arm64-based (Apple Silicon) binaries to prepare for this possible deprecation.

Analytics​

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