Install Draton Early Tooling Preview

This document covers end-user installation for the first public Draton Early Tooling Preview.

What ships

Supported preview archives:

• draton-early-linux-x86_64.tar.gz
• draton-early-linux-aarch64.tar.gz
• draton-early-macos-x86_64.tar.gz
• draton-early-macos-aarch64.tar.gz
• draton-early-windows-x86_64.zip

Currently blocked:

• none inside the supported Early Tooling Preview matrix

Every supported archive contains:

• drat or drat.exe
• packaged Draton runtime static library
• LICENSE
• QUICKSTART.md
• INSTALL.md
• EARLY-PREVIEW.md
• examples/hello.dt
• examples/early-preview/hello-app/
• install.sh
• install.ps1

Runtime prerequisite

Prebuilt Early Tooling Preview archives do not require a separate LLVM install on supported targets.

What they do rely on:

• Linux: standard runtime libraries normally present on mainstream distributions, especially glibc, libstdc++, libffi, zlib, and libtinfo
• macOS: system runtime libraries that ship with supported macOS releases
• Windows x86_64: the standard Windows user-mode runtime stack present on supported desktop systems

If you are building Draton from source instead of using a release archive, LLVM 14 development libraries are still required.

Install with scripts

Linux and macOS

Use the release-hosted installer:

curl -fsSL https://github.com/draton-lang/draton/releases/download/v0.1.41/install.sh | sh

Pin a specific tag:

curl -fsSL https://github.com/draton-lang/draton/releases/download/v0.1.41/install.sh | sh -s -- --version v0.1.41

Default install location:

• payload: ~/.local/share/draton/current
• add to PATH: ~/.local/share/draton/current
• installer behavior: appends that directory to the first writable profile it finds (~/.bashrc, ~/.zshrc, or ~/.profile)

The installer verifies success with:

drat --version

The installer also verifies the downloaded archive against the published .sha256 checksum before extracting it.

Windows x86_64

Use PowerShell:

Invoke-WebRequest `
  -Uri https://github.com/draton-lang/draton/releases/download/v0.1.41/install.ps1 `
  -OutFile install.ps1
.\install.ps1 -Version v0.1.41

Default install location:

• payload: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Draton\current
• add to PATH: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Draton\current
• installer behavior: appends that directory to the current user's Path environment variable when needed

The script verifies:

drat --version

The script also verifies the downloaded archive against the published .sha256 checksum before extracting it.

Windows aarch64

Not part of the current Early Tooling Preview target set.

Current status:

• no published release artifact
• no official install script path
• not claimed as supported functionality in this preview

Manual install

Linux x86_64

curl -L -o draton-early-linux-x86_64.tar.gz \
  https://github.com/draton-lang/draton/releases/download/v0.X.Y/draton-early-linux-x86_64.tar.gz
tar -xzf draton-early-linux-x86_64.tar.gz
export PATH="$PWD/draton-early-linux-x86_64:$PATH"
drat --version

Linux aarch64

curl -L -o draton-early-linux-aarch64.tar.gz \
  https://github.com/draton-lang/draton/releases/download/v0.X.Y/draton-early-linux-aarch64.tar.gz
tar -xzf draton-early-linux-aarch64.tar.gz
export PATH="$PWD/draton-early-linux-aarch64:$PATH"
drat --version

macOS Intel

curl -L -o draton-early-macos-x86_64.tar.gz \
  https://github.com/draton-lang/draton/releases/download/v0.X.Y/draton-early-macos-x86_64.tar.gz
tar -xzf draton-early-macos-x86_64.tar.gz
export PATH="$PWD/draton-early-macos-x86_64:$PATH"
drat --version

macOS Apple Silicon

curl -L -o draton-early-macos-aarch64.tar.gz \
  https://github.com/draton-lang/draton/releases/download/v0.X.Y/draton-early-macos-aarch64.tar.gz
tar -xzf draton-early-macos-aarch64.tar.gz
export PATH="$PWD/draton-early-macos-aarch64:$PATH"
drat --version

If Gatekeeper warns about an unsigned binary:

xattr -d com.apple.quarantine draton-early-macos-*/drat 2>/dev/null || true

Windows x86_64

Invoke-WebRequest `
  -Uri https://github.com/draton-lang/draton/releases/download/v0.X.Y/draton-early-windows-x86_64.zip `
  -OutFile draton-early-windows-x86_64.zip
Expand-Archive draton-early-windows-x86_64.zip -DestinationPath .
$env:Path = "$PWD\\draton-early-windows-x86_64;$env:Path"
drat --version

PATH setup

Recommended persistent PATH entries:

• Linux / macOS script installs: ~/.local/share/draton/current
• Windows script installs: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Draton\current
• Manual installs: the extracted archive root directory

Checksum verification

Download SHA256SUMS.txt plus the matching archive or .sha256 file.

Linux:

sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS.txt --ignore-missing

macOS:

shasum -a 256 draton-early-macos-aarch64.tar.gz

Windows:

Get-FileHash .\draton-early-windows-x86_64.zip -Algorithm SHA256

Compare the printed hash against SHA256SUMS.txt or the per-asset .sha256 file.

Uninstall

Script installs:

• Linux / macOS: remove ~/.local/share/draton
• Windows: remove %LOCALAPPDATA%\Draton
• then remove the corresponding PATH entry if you added one

Manual installs:

• delete the extracted directory
• remove its PATH entry

Troubleshooting

drat --version fails

Prebuilt preview binaries should not require a separate LLVM install. If startup still fails, the usual cause is a missing standard system runtime library on a minimal machine image.

Typical Linux fixes:

• Debian / Ubuntu: sudo apt install libstdc++6 libffi8 zlib1g libtinfo6
• Fedora: install the matching libstdc++, libffi, zlib, and ncurses-compat-libs packages
• Arch: ensure gcc-libs, libffi, zlib, and ncurses are present

On macOS, unsigned-binary or Gatekeeper restrictions are more likely than a missing runtime library.

On Windows x86_64, verify that you are on a normal desktop/runtime image and not a stripped-down environment.

drat build fails from an installed archive

Check that:

• the runtime static library still sits beside drat
• you did not move only the executable out of the extracted directory
• drat --version works first

macOS unsigned binary warning

The Early Tooling Preview is unsigned and not notarized yet. Remove the quarantine attribute manually if needed.