Notes for macOS

Mesa builds on macOS without modifications. However, there are some details to be aware of.

  • Mesa has a number of build-time dependencies. Most dependencies, including Meson itself, are available in homebrew <https://brew.sh>, which has a Mesa package for reference. The exception seems to be Mako, a Python module used for templating, which you can install as pip3 install mako.

  • macOS is picky about its build-time environment. Type brew sh before building to get the Homebrew dependencies in your path.

Mesa’s default builds with the Apple GLX uses Mesa as a front for the hardware-accelerated system OpenGL framework, to provide hardware acceleration to X11 applications on macOS running via XQuartz.

Mesa’s software rasterizers also work on macOS. To build, set the build options -Dosmesa=true -Dglx=xlib and select an appropriate Gallium software rasterizer.

For native hardware, stay tuned for updates here!