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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, fetch the vendored LLVM 18.1.8 bundle first and export the environment that scripts/vendor_llvm.py prints. That command also prepares the repo-local llvm-config shim under vendor/llvm/<target>/bin, which is the supported way to make llvm-sys see the vendored toolchain on Linux hosts where the upstream bundle's llvm-config binary is not directly runnable.

Install with scripts​

Linux and macOS​

Use the release-hosted installer:

curl -fsSL https://github.com/draton-lang/draton/releases/download/v0.1.42/install.sh | sh

Pin a specific tag:

curl -fsSL https://github.com/draton-lang/draton/releases/download/v0.1.42/install.sh | sh -s -- --version v0.1.42

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/v0.1.42/install.ps1 `
  -OutFile install.ps1
.\install.ps1 -Version v0.1.42

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 x86_64 users should prefer v0.1.42 or later. That preview fixes a packaged-runtime ABI mismatch that could crash println(Int) and for ... in range(...), and it restores the expected default .exe output path for single-file drat build / drat run.

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
  • the packaged llvm/ directory still sits beside drat when the archive shipped with a bundled linker toolchain
  • you did not move only the executable out of the extracted directory
  • drat --version works first

On Windows x86_64, also verify the installed preview version:

  • v0.1.42 or later includes the packaged codegen/linker fix for integer println(...) and range-loop demos
  • if you still have v0.1.41 or older, upgrade before debugging project code

macOS unsigned binary warning​

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