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+# Getting Meson
+
+Meson is implemented in Python 3, and requires 3.6 or newer. If your
+operating system provides a package manager, you should install it
+with that. For platforms that don't have a package manager, you need
+to download it from [Python's home page]. See below for
+[platform-specific Python3 quirks](#platformspecific-install-quirks).
+
+## Downloading Meson
+
+Meson releases can be downloaded from the [GitHub release page], and
+you can run `./meson.py` from inside a release or the git repository
+itself without doing anything special.
+
+On Windows, if you did not install Python with the installer options
+that make Python scripts executable, you will have to run `python
+/path/to/meson.py`, where `python` is Python 3.6 or newer.
+
+The newest development code can be obtained directly from [Git], and
+we strive to ensure that it will always be working and usable. All
+commits go through a pull-request process that runs CI and tests
+several platforms.
+
+## Installing Meson with pip
+
+Meson is available in the [Python Package Index] and can be installed
+with `sudo pip3 install meson` which requires root and will install it
+system-wide.
+
+If you have downloaded a copy of the Meson sources already, you can
+install it with `sudo pip3 install path/to/source/root/`.
+
+Alternatively, you can use `pip3 install --user meson` which will
+install it for your user and does not require any special
+privileges. This will install the package in `~/.local/`, so you will
+have to add `~/.local/bin` to your `PATH`, and `sudo meson install`
+will be completely broken since the program will not be available to
+root. Only use a user copy of Meson if you do not care about
+installing projects as root.
+
+## Installing Meson and Ninja with the MSI installer
+
+We provide an MSI installer on the [GitHub release page] that can be
+used to install both Meson and Ninja at once for Windows. It also
+contains an embedded copy of Python, so scripts that use the [Python
+module](Python-module.md) and do not have any external dependencies
+will continue to work as expected.
+
+Please note that this is a new feature, so bug reports are expected
+and welcome!
+
+## Dependencies
+
+In the most common case, you will need the [Ninja executable] for
+using the `ninja` backend, which is the default in Meson. This backend
+can be used on all platforms and with all toolchains, including GCC,
+Clang, Visual Studio, MinGW, ICC, ARMCC, etc.
+
+You can use the version provided by your package manager if possible,
+otherwise download the binary executable from the [Ninja project's
+release page](https://github.com/ninja-build/ninja/releases).
+
+If you will only use the Visual Studio backend (`--backend=vs`) to
+generate Visual Studio solutions on Windows or the XCode backend
+(`--backend=xcode`) to generate XCode projects on macOS, you do not
+need Ninja.
+
+# Platform-specific install quirks
+
+## Windows Python3 quirks
+
+When installing Python 3, it is highly recommended (but not required)
+that you select the installer options as follows:
+
+![installer step 1](images/py3-install-1.png "Enable 'Add Python 3.6 to PATH' and click 'Customize installation'")
+![installer step 2](images/py3-install-2.png "Optional Features: ensure 'pip' is enabled")
+![installer step 3](images/py3-install-3.png "Advanced Options: enable 'Install for all users'")
+
+With this, you will have `python` and `pip` in `PATH`, and you can
+install Meson with pip. You will also be able to directly run `meson`
+in any shell on Windows instead of having to run `py -3` with the full
+path to the `meson.py` script.
+
+## MSYS2 Python3 quirks
+
+If you are using MSYS2 on Windows as your development environment,
+please make sure that you **do not use** the `msys/python` package to
+provide Python 3. Use either `mingw32/mingw-w64-i686-python3` or
+`mingw64/mingw-w64-x86_64-python3` depending on which MinGW target you
+are building for.
+
+  [GitHub release page]: https://github.com/mesonbuild/meson/releases
+  [Python Package Index]: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/meson/
+  [Git]: https://github.com/mesonbuild/meson
+  [Python's home page]: https://www.python.org/downloads/
+  [Ninja executable]: https://ninja-build.org/