--- /dev/null
+INSTALLING DPDK USING THE MESON BUILD SYSTEM
+---------------------------------------------
+
+NOTE: Compiling and installing DPDK using ``meson`` and ``ninja``, rather
+than using ``make`` (GNU make) is EXPERIMENTAL. Official builds of DPDK
+should always be done using ``make``, as described in the ``Getting Started
+Guide`` documentation, and at "http://dpdk.org/doc/quick-start".
+
+Summary
+--------
+For many platforms, compiling and installing DPDK should work using the
+following set of commands::
+
+ meson build
+ cd build
+ ninja
+ ninja install
+
+This will compile DPDK in the ``build`` subdirectory, and then install the
+resulting libraries, drivers and header files onto the system - generally
+in /usr/local. A package-config file, ``libdpdk.pc``, for DPDK will also
+be installed to allow ease of compiling and linking with applications.
+
+After installation, to use DPDK, the necessary CFLAG and LDFLAG variables
+can be got from pkg-config::
+
+ pkg-config --cflags libdpdk
+ pkg-config --libs libdpdk
+
+More detail on each of these steps can be got from the following sections.
+
+
+Getting the Tools
+------------------
+
+The ``meson`` tool is used to configure a DPDK build. On most Linux
+distributions this can be got using the local package management system,
+e.g. ``dnf install meson`` or ``apt-get install meson``. If meson is not
+available as a suitable package, it can also be installed using the Python
+3 ``pip`` tool, e.g. ``pip3 install meson``. Version 0.42 of meson is
+recommended - if the version packaged is too old, the latest version is
+generally available from "pip".
+
+The other dependency for building is the ``ninja`` tool, which acts similar
+to make and performs the actual build using information provided by meson.
+Installing meson will, in many cases, also install ninja, but, if not
+already installed, it too is generally packaged by most Linux distributions.
+If not available as a package, it can be downloaded as source or binary from
+https://ninja-build.org/
+
+
+Configuring the Build
+----------------------
+
+To configure a build, run the meson tool, passing the path to the directory
+to be used for the build e.g. ``meson build``, as shown above. If calling
+meson from somewhere other than the root directory of the DPDK project the
+path to the root directory should be passed as the first parameter, and the
+build path as the second. For example, to build DPDK in /tmp/dpdk-build::
+
+ user@host:/tmp$ meson ~user/dpdk dpdk-build
+
+Meson will then configure the build based on settings in the project's
+meson.build files, and by checking the build environment for e.g. compiler
+properties or the presence of dependencies, such as libpcap, or openssl
+libcrypto libraries. Once done, meson writes a ``build.ninja`` file in the
+build directory to be used to do the build itself when ninja is called.
+
+Tuning of the build is possible, both as part of the original meson call,
+or subsequently using ``meson configure`` command (``mesonconf`` in some
+older versions). Some options, such as ``buildtype``, or ``werror`` are
+built into meson, while others, such as ``max_lcores``, or the list of
+examples to build, are DPDK-specific. To have a list of all options
+available run ``meson configure`` in the build directory.
+
+Examples of adjusting the defaults when doing initial meson configuration.
+Project-specific options are passed used -Doption=value::
+
+ meson --werror werrorbuild # build with warnings as errors
+
+ meson --buildtype=debug debugbuild # build for debugging
+
+ meson -Dexamples=l3fwd,l2fwd fwdbuild # build some examples as
+ # part of the normal DPDK build
+
+ meson -Dmax_lcores=8 smallbuild # scale build for smaller systems
+
+Examples of setting the same options using meson configure::
+
+ meson configure -Dwerror=true
+
+ meson configure -Dbuildtype=debug
+
+ meson configure -Dexamples=l3fwd,l2fwd
+
+ meson configure -Dmax_lcores=8
+
+NOTE: once meson has been run to configure a build in a directory, it
+cannot be run again on the same directory. Instead ``meson configure``
+should be used to change the build settings within the directory, and when
+``ninja`` is called to do the build itself, it will trigger the necessary
+re-scan from meson.
+
+As well as those settings taken from ``meson configure``, other options
+such as the compiler to use can be passed via environment variables. For
+example::
+
+ CC=clang meson clang-build
+
+NOTE: for more comprehensive overriding of compilers or other environment
+settings, the tools for cross-compilation may be considered. However, for
+basic overriding of the compiler etc., the above form works as expected.
+
+
+Performing the Build
+---------------------
+
+Use ``ninja`` to perform the actual build inside the build folder
+previously configured. In most cases no arguments are necessary.
+
+Ninja accepts a number of flags which are similar to make. For example, to
+call ninja from outside the build folder, you can use ``ninja -C build``.
+Ninja also runs parallel builds by default, but you can limit this using
+the ``-j`` flag, e.g. ``ninja -j1 -v`` to do the build one step at a time,
+printing each command on a new line as it runs.
+
+
+Installing the Compiled Files
+------------------------------
+
+Use ``ninja install`` to install the required DPDK files onto the system.
+The install prefix defaults to ``/usr/local`` but can be used as with other
+options above. The environment variable ``DEST_DIR`` can be used to adjust
+the root directory for the install, for example when packaging.
+
+With the base install directory, the individual directories for libraries
+and headers are configurable. By default, the following will be the
+installed layout::
+
+ headers -> /usr/local/include
+ libraries -> /usr/local/lib64
+ drivers -> /usr/local/lib64/dpdk/drivers
+ libdpdk.pc -> /usr/local/lib64/pkgconfig
+
+For the drivers, these will also be symbolically linked into the library
+install directory, so that ld.so can find them in cases where one driver may
+depend on another, e.g. a NIC PMD depending upon the PCI bus driver. Within
+the EAL, the default search path for drivers will be set to the configured
+driver install path, so dynamically-linked applications can be run without
+having to pass in ``-d /path/to/driver`` options for standard drivers.
+
+
+Using the DPDK within an Application
+-------------------------------------
+
+To compile and link against DPDK within an application, pkg-config should
+be used to query the correct parameters. Examples of this are given in the
+makefiles for the example applications included with DPDK. They demonstrate
+how to link either against the DPDK shared libraries, or against the static
+versions of the same.
+
+From examples/helloworld/Makefile::
+
+ PC_FILE := $(shell pkg-config --path libdpdk)
+ CFLAGS += -O3 $(shell pkg-config --cflags libdpdk)
+ LDFLAGS_SHARED = $(shell pkg-config --libs libdpdk)
+ LDFLAGS_STATIC = -Wl,-Bstatic $(shell pkg-config --static --libs libdpdk)
+
+ build/$(APP)-shared: $(SRCS-y) Makefile $(PC_FILE) | build
+ $(CC) $(CFLAGS) $(SRCS-y) -o $@ $(LDFLAGS) $(LDFLAGS_SHARED)
+
+ build/$(APP)-static: $(SRCS-y) Makefile $(PC_FILE) | build
+ $(CC) $(CFLAGS) $(SRCS-y) -o $@ $(LDFLAGS) $(LDFLAGS_STATIC)
+
+ build:
+ @mkdir -p $@