Blog: Intel Comes Up With A Linux Graphics Driver Installer

[menotu]

Posted by Michael Larabel on March 11, 2013

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Updating one component can mean needing to update the other components due to API/ABI breakage, new internal dependencies, or not being able to have full hardware support / functionality without updating all pieces of the puzzle. When upgrading the entire Linux kernel, that can also be a big issue since it affects all areas of the system for potential breakage or regression and just not the graphics driver.

For end-users, it's a heck of a lot easier updating/installing the proprietary drivers than having to upgrade the open-source Linux graphics stack and that's why for fixed-point distributions it's not commonly available as an option. Intel OTC, however, announced last week the Intel Linux Graphics Installer. "The aim of this installer is to provide a simple route to getting recently released (12.07 or 2012-Q4 in this case) kernel and userspace packages for i915 family graphics devices."

This Intel driver for now is primarily targeting Fedora 17, Fedora 18, Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, and Ubuntu 12.10. The installer can be triggered from the desktop menu or by launching intel-linux-graphics-installer. What this effectively comes down to though is just a facade for interfacing with apt-get or yum depending upon the distribution for getting updated distribution-specific packages from repositories on Intel's 01.org server.

The components hosted within the Intel driver repository is a new kernel or i915 DKMS module, Mesa, xf86-video-intel, libva, vaapi-driver, cairo, llvm-libs, libwayland, and libdrm.

So unfortunately this installer isn't anything original to fundamentally improve the open-source Linux graphics driver stack by making it easier to update/install the open-source Intel Linux GPU driver.

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTMyNDQ

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01.ORG - Intel's Open Source Technology Center

https://01.org/linuxgraphics/downloads/2013/intel-linux-graphics-installer

https://01.org/

https://01.org/linuxgraphics/downloads/2013/intel-linux-graphics-installer

[Just17]

So you might end up with a new kernel whether you wanted to or not ......  and no point in reverting to the older kernel because the graphics driver won't work?

[gseaman]

Unless they want to start building their driver out of the kernel tree and start supporting several kernels and versions of xorg for each driver, there is no point. 

Galen

[kjpetrie]

So you might end up with a new kernel whether you wanted to or not ......  and no point in reverting to the older kernel because the graphics driver won't work?

A parsing ambiguity - "new (kernel) or (DKMS module)" v. "new (kernel or DKMS) module".

Wonder which it is?

[Just17]

So you might end up with a new kernel whether you wanted to or not ......  and no point in reverting to the older kernel because the graphics driver won't work?

A parsing ambiguity - "new (kernel) or (DKMS module)" v. "new (kernel or DKMS) module".

Wonder which it is?

Ah yes ....  that makes some sense ......

a new (kernel or i915) DKMS module  ?? ??

Dunno what the 'or' is doing though ........ 

[kjpetrie]

I think they mean a new kernel module for i915 video which can either be compiled directly for the kernel or using DKMS, depending on what the distribution normally does.