Mesa is a name of a group of open-source Linux graphics drivers suitable and available for Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA hardware. It’s an open source alternative to closed source proprietary drivers offered by upstream GPU vendors. Though it supports NVIDIA, still AMD, and Intel hardware is best supported. Gaming on Linux was always not compatible due to lack of graphics driver support but now the time has changed, Mesa is here as an open source implementation of the OpenGL specification. OpenGL is a graphics programming library for rendering and composing interactive 3D software.
Canonical always try to backport the latest 3D graphics library for its supported Ubuntu system. And as per the announcement of Canonical’s developer Timo Aaltonen, the Mesa graphics stack latest version 18.1.5 is available in the Ubuntu x updates PPA for Ubuntu Bionic Beaver which will increase the gaming performance.
Recently the “Ubuntu x” team has released Mesa 18.1.5 with some significant bug fixes. This time it has focuses on RADV Radeon Vulkan, Intel ANV Vulkan, i965, RadeonSI, and even R600g driver fixes. Check the full changelog here.
Install Mesa in Ubuntu Linux
You can install it in Ubuntu Linux via PPA – Personal Package Archive. Open the Terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run the following command:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/updates
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
Now check the driver version:
glxinfo | grep "OpenGL version"
Remove It from Ubuntu System
If you face any problem or want to restore changes and downgrade to the default one, run the following command:
sudo apt-get install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/updates
The Ubuntu developers are enabling GLVND for allowing NVIDIA and Mesa drivers library co-exist in the same system.
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sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/updates
Cannot add PPA: ‘ppa:~ubuntu-x-swat/ubuntu/updates’.
ERROR: ‘~ubuntu-x-swat’ user or team does not exist.