Requirements

Minimums for running a released build, and the extras needed to build from source. Split into two top-level sections.

Running a released build

These are the floors for end users downloading from the Releases page.

macOS

• macOS 11 Big Sur or later. Per-arch builds: arm64 for Apple Silicon, amd64 for Intel. Pick the artifact matching your CPU.
• Gatekeeper warning on first launch. The app is ad-hoc signed but not notarized. Right-click → Open to bypass. If macOS still refuses with “damaged” or “unidentified developer,” strip the quarantine flag: xattr -cr Baudrun.app. The .dmg installer handles signatures correctly out of the box; the .zip works once unpacked with Finder or ditto -x -k.
• USB-to-serial drivers where applicable. See the chipset table in README.md.

Windows

• Windows 10 21H2 or later, or Windows 11. amd64 and arm64 builds shipped separately; pick the matching artifact.
• SmartScreen warning on first launch. Unsigned, so click “More info” → “Run anyway”. Code signing is on the near-term roadmap (see TODO.md).
• Windows 10 1803–21H1 will technically launch the binary, but nothing older than 21H2 is tested or supported here.
• Every Windows release ships the NSIS -setup.exe installer plus a portable .zip of the bare Baudrun.exe. Stable releases on amd64 additionally produce an .msi for corporate silent- deploy workflows. The .msi is gated on two conditions:
  • Stable tag only — WiX requires a numeric-only pre-release identifier and rejects alphanumeric ones (-alpha.N, -beta.N, -rc.N).
  • amd64 only — WiX Toolset’s candle.exe doesn’t run reliably on Windows-on-ARM. arm64 users get the NSIS installer or the portable .zip; the small minority who need MSI on arm64 can either run the amd64 .msi under emulation or wait for WiX’s arm64 support to mature.

Linux

• Vulkan-capable GPU with current Mesa drivers — the same floor Zed ships against. The renderer goes straight to Vulkan; there’s no software fallback. Practically every distribution-shipped GPU stack from 2022 onward qualifies.
• Floor for the bundled packages and their dependency declarations:
  • Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy+
  • Debian 12 Bookworm+
  • Fedora 38+
  • Arch (rolling)
  • openSUSE Tumbleweed (rolling)
• .deb / .rpm / .pkg.tar.zst declare libusb-1.0 as a package dep, so apt / dnf / pacman pull it in. They also install a udev rule (/usr/lib/udev/rules.d/60-baudrun-serial.rules) that grants the console user ACL access to /dev/ttyUSB* via systemd-logind’s uaccess tag, with no need to add yourself to the dialout group.
• AppImage has the same runtime requirement plus FUSE (libfuse2 on Ubuntu, fuse2 on most others). Run with --appimage-extract-and-run if FUSE is unavailable. The AppImage doesn’t run the post-install udev hook the package installers do, so AppImage users still need group / udev setup of their own.
• Wayland and X11 are both supported; Wayland is preferred on GNOME / KDE / Sway / Hyprland for HiDPI scaling and IME handling. The window uses a client-side title bar so it stays draggable under GNOME Mutter (which doesn’t ship server-side decorations).

Building from source

Toolchain

Tool	Minimum	Why
Rust	stable (1.77+)	rust-version in Cargo.toml.
pkg-config	any	Used to resolve libusb on macOS / Linux.

# Install Rust (if you don't already have it)
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
# Or via Homebrew: brew install rustup-init && rustup-init -y

# Clone + build
git clone git@github.com:packetThrower/Baudrun.git
cd Baudrun
cargo build --release         # optimized binary at target/release/Baudrun
cargo run                     # dev launch (loopback mode if no port)

No Node, no JavaScript build step, no webview runtime.

macOS host

• Xcode Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install) for the Apple toolchain.
• libusb + pkg-config (brew install libusb pkg-config) for the link against the vendored rusb (CP210x direct backend on macOS).
• Each release ships a native per-arch binary (cargo build --release --target aarch64-apple-darwin on Apple Silicon, --target x86_64-apple-darwin on Intel). Universal artifacts aren’t part of the build flow — Homebrew’s libusb is per-arch only and the dual-arch split sidesteps a hand-lipo’d dylib.
• SDK version matters for window chrome. The release workflow pins the macos-26 runner (arm64) so binaries link against the Tahoe SDK and pick up the rounded-corner / vibrancy treatment. The Intel slot uses macos-15-intel. Building on an older macOS still works, but the resulting binary falls back to legacy window chrome when run on macOS 26.

Windows host

• Visual Studio Build Tools 2022 (MSVC + Windows SDK) for the link.exe toolchain that the gpui DirectX backend links through.
• Native ARM for arm64 builds. Cross-compiling to Windows-on-ARM from x86 Windows isn’t reliable; use a native ARM host (Surface Pro X, Copilot+ PC, the windows-11-arm GitHub runner).
• No libusb install needed — Windows uses the Win32 serial API directly.

Linux host

• Build deps:

  libusb-1.0-0-dev libudev-dev pkg-config

  Plus the usual build-essential / gcc toolchain for cgo-free Rust linking.
• Cross-compiling Linux from macOS or Windows is not supported. Use a Linux host, a Linux VM, or CI.
• Extra tools only needed for packaging:
  • cargo-packager drives the .dmg / NSIS / .deb / .rpm / .AppImage builds (cargo install cargo-packager or use the binstall release from CI).
  • fpm drives .pkg.tar.zst output (sudo gem install fpm). cargo-packager doesn’t target pacman.
  • libarchive-tools provides bsdtar, which fpm shells out to when building .pkg.tar.zst.

Why these floors?

• macOS 11: Apple Silicon’s own minimum and gpui’s effective baseline. The bundle’s minimumSystemVersion reflects this.
• Windows 10 21H2: the last consumer-supported Windows 10 tail for Microsoft’s long-tail updates. gpui’s DirectX backend runs on 10 1809+, but 21H2 is the tested floor.
• Linux Vulkan floor: gpui renders through Vulkan with no software fallback. Practically any distro shipped from 2022 onward with current Mesa qualifies; the package declarations pick a conservative version floor below which we can’t validate.
• Rust stable: rust-version = "1.77" is set in Cargo.toml; newer is fine.

Upstream references

• gpui: https://www.gpui.rs/
• alacritty_terminal: https://github.com/alacritty/alacritty/tree/master/alacritty_terminal