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, 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.

Mesa’s Gallium drivers can be used on macOS by using the -Dgallium-drivers=<drivers> build option. Do not use with the previous software rasterizers options, instead add swrast to the <drivers> list. Only software renderers and drivers that forward to other APIs can work, any linux hardware drivers will not work. For details on each driver’s macOS support see their specific documentation.