Installing on Arch Linux¶

Run the setup script from the repository root, then build. The script also covers Manjaro, CachyOS and EndeavourOS (scripts/setup/arch.sh).

Setup script¶

bash scripts/setup/arch.sh                       # CPU build dependencies and linters
ENABLE_CUDA=true bash scripts/setup/arch.sh      # + cuda and cuda-tools from extra
ENABLE_SYCL=true bash scripts/setup/arch.sh      # prints the oneAPI install steps
INSTALL_LINTERS=false bash scripts/setup/arch.sh # skip shellcheck, shfmt and the Python linters

The switches take the value true; any other value, 1 included, leaves the option off. INSTALL_LINTERS is on unless you set it to false. ENABLE_SYCL=true installs nothing: it prints the commands of the SYCL section below.

Manual install¶

sudo pacman -S --needed \
    base-devel clang cppcheck \
    meson ninja nasm pkgconf \
    python python-pip python-virtualenv \
    doxygen

CUDA (optional)¶

sudo pacman -S --needed cuda cuda-tools
export PATH=/opt/cuda/bin:$PATH

extra/cuda follows the current CUDA release; the project builds and tests with CUDA 13.4. See the CUDA backend guide.

SYCL / oneAPI (optional)¶

The oneAPI compiler is in the official extra repository:

sudo pacman -S --needed intel-oneapi-dpcpp-cpp
source /opt/intel/oneapi/setvars.sh

intel-oneapi-toolkit installs the whole toolkit instead. See the SYCL backend guide.

Intel QSV (optional, for vmaf-tune)¶

sudo pacman -S --needed libvpl vpl-gpu-rt

vpl-gpu-rt is the runtime for Tiger Lake and newer GPUs, Arc included; older GPUs (Skylake to Comet Lake) need intel-media-sdk instead. extra/ffmpeg is built with oneVPL. Intel QSV has the hardware matrix and the FFmpeg requirements.

Build¶

From the repository root:

meson setup build core -Denable_cuda=true -Denable_sycl=true
ninja -C build

Leave out the -Denable_* options you did not install SDKs for. The binary is build/tools/vmaf.