Since we switched from autotools to Meson in commit
94592c14, we don't need to include
`config.h` early to properly enable large file support.  Meson passes
the required macros on the compiler command line instead of defining
them in `config.h`.

This means we can include `config.h` at any time, whenever we want to
check its macros, and there are no ordering constraints.

For easier state management inside filter plugins.

The old struct config_param remains only for top-level string options.

Since version 2.32, g_thread_init() is deprecated and a no-op.  Let's
upgrade that (optional) dependency so we can remove all those
g_thread_init() calls.

API simplification.  We can now avoid abusing a "size_t*" as
additional return value.