If you are using Mesa (FOSS OpenGL/Vulkan drivers on Linux), you can be in situation when it introduces some new features upstream, but it didn't make it into your distribution yet and it can take quite a long time for that to happen. Certain games can become playable with that change, or it can be a performance optimization that speeds up already working games, or may be you simply want to test the newest Mesa itself - either way, you might be interested in running the latest development version of Mesa for various reasons. At the same time you don't want to mess up your system with an unstable graphics stack.
I started a guide on the GamingOnLinux Wiki, to explain how to build and use Mesa for playing games while keeping your system Mesa intact. It's focused on Debian (testing), but you can use same ideas and adjust it to any distribution if you use a different one. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
I started a guide on the GamingOnLinux Wiki, to explain how to build and use Mesa for playing games while keeping your system Mesa intact. It's focused on Debian (testing), but you can use same ideas and adjust it to any distribution if you use a different one. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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This discussion is moot. If you want a modern distribution with a modern update process you would go with a rolling release distro. "Stable" distros, particulary ones that aim for the server market like Ubuntu, does not make an awful lot of sense for home users, least of all gamers.
Don't get me wrong, Ubuntu is great at what it does. However, if you want the latest and greatest software, Ubuntu is not your distro. Sure, you can bridge the gap somewhat with PPAs, but that's not really a great solution to something rolling releases solves by default.
I didn't use it myself yet, so can't speak from experience. But if you'll figure out how to do it - feel free to add a section about Gallium 9 to the wiki :)
In my case, I chown my /opt/<mesa> directory so `make install` simply has no privileges to write anywhere else. :)
Fair enough, that's a good idea when starting out. I actually install to /opt/mesa-<arch>-<release/date+hash> and symlink that to /opt/mesa-arch so I can always go back by just changing a symlink.
Good work in writing it all up!
Last edited by boltronics on 14 January 2017 at 2:11 am UTC
Quake 2 on my Voodoo Banshee ...
And the times I compiled M.A.M.E. (again for glide support).
I'm getting old.
Luckily, turtles live many years.