mirror of
https://github.com/minetest/minetest.git
synced 2024-12-23 14:42:24 +01:00
110 lines
4.4 KiB
Markdown
110 lines
4.4 KiB
Markdown
OS/library compatibility policy
|
|
===============================
|
|
|
|
This document describes how we decide which minimum versions of operating systems, C++ standards,
|
|
libraries, build tools (CMake) or compilers Minetest requires.
|
|
|
|
Most important is that we do not increase our minimum requirements without a reason or use case.
|
|
A reason can be as simple as "cleaning up legacy support code", but it needs to exist.
|
|
|
|
As most development happens on Linux the first measure is to check the version of the component in question on:
|
|
* the oldest still-supported **Ubuntu** (End of Standard Support)
|
|
* the oldest still-supported **Debian** (*not* LTS)
|
|
* optional: the second newest **RHEL (derivative)**
|
|
|
|
Generally this leads to versions about 5 years old and works as a reasonable result for BSDs and other platforms too.
|
|
|
|
Needless to say that any new requirements need to work on our other platforms too, as listed below.
|
|
|
|
### Windows
|
|
|
|
We currently support Windows 8 or later.
|
|
|
|
Despite requiring explicit support code in numerous places there doesn't seem to be a strong case
|
|
for dropping older Windows versions. We will likely only do it once SDL2 does so.
|
|
|
|
Note that we're constrained by the versions [vcpkg](https://vcpkg.io/en/packages) offers, for the MSVC build.
|
|
|
|
### macOS
|
|
|
|
We currently support macOS 10.14 (Mojave) or later.
|
|
|
|
Since we do not have any macOS developer we can only do some shallow testing in CI.
|
|
So this is subject to change basically whenever Github throws
|
|
[a new version](https://github.com/actions/runner-images?tab=readme-ov-file#available-images) at us, or for other reasons.
|
|
|
|
### Android
|
|
|
|
We currently support Android 5.0 (API 21) or later.
|
|
|
|
There's usually no reason to raise this unless the NDK drops older versions.
|
|
|
|
*Note*: You can check the Google Play Console to see what our user base is running.
|
|
|
|
## Other parts
|
|
|
|
**Compilers**: gcc, clang and MSVC (exceptions exist)
|
|
|
|
**OpenGL** is an entirely different beast, there is no formal consensus on changing the requirements
|
|
and neither do we have an exact set of requirements.
|
|
|
|
We still support OpenGL 1.4 without shaders (fixed-pipeline), which could be considered very unreasonable in 2024.
|
|
OpenGL ES 2.0 is supported for the sake of mobile platforms.
|
|
|
|
It has been [proposed](https://irc.minetest.net/minetest-dev/2022-08-18) moving to OpenGL 2.x or 3.0 with shaders required.
|
|
|
|
General **system requirements** are not bounded either.
|
|
Being able to play Minetest on a recent low-end phone is a reasonable target.
|
|
|
|
## On totality
|
|
|
|
These rules are not absolute and there can be exceptions.
|
|
|
|
But consider how much trouble it would be to chase down a new version of a component on an old distro:
|
|
* C++ standard library: probably impossible without breaking your system(?)
|
|
* compiler: very annoying
|
|
* CMake: somewhat annoying
|
|
* some ordinary library: reasonably easy
|
|
|
|
The rules can be seen more relaxed for optional dependencies, but remember to be reasonable.
|
|
Sound is optional at build-time but nobody would call an engine build without sound complete.
|
|
|
|
In general also consider:
|
|
* Is the proposition important enough to warrant a new dependency?
|
|
* Can we make it easier for users to build the library together with Minetest?
|
|
* Maybe even vendor the library?
|
|
* Or could the engine include a transparent fallback implementation?
|
|
|
|
The SpatialIndex support is a good example for the latter. It is only used to speed up some (relatively unimportant)
|
|
API feature, but there's no loss of functionality if you don't have it.
|
|
|
|
## A concrete example
|
|
|
|
(as of April 2024)
|
|
|
|
```
|
|
Situation: someone wants C++20 to use std::span
|
|
|
|
MSVC supports it after some version, should be fine as long as it builds in CI
|
|
gcc with libstdc++ 10 or later
|
|
clang with libc++ 7 or later (note: no mainstream Linux distros use this)
|
|
|
|
Debian 11 has libstdc++ 10
|
|
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS has libstdc++ 9
|
|
(optional) Rocky Linux 8 has libstdc++ 8
|
|
Windows, Android and macOS are probably okay
|
|
|
|
Verdict: not possible. maybe next year.
|
|
|
|
Possible alternative: use a library that provides a polyfill for std::span
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
## Links
|
|
|
|
* Ubuntu support table: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases
|
|
* Debian support table: https://wiki.debian.org/LTS
|
|
* Release table of a RHEL derivative: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlmaLinux#Releases
|
|
* Android API levels: https://apilevels.com/
|
|
* C++ standard support information: https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/compiler_support
|
|
* Distribution-independent package search: https://repology.org/ or https://pkgs.org/
|