Graphics Installer 1.0.6 for Linux* Released!

Hi - we currently aim to supply updated packages and drivers to new, less technically aware users who aren't necessarily comfortable with updating parts of their systems from outside the base distribution they're using. Given the resources available to us (time & people) this means we currently target Ubuntu and Fedora as the best fit.

In Debian's case, we don't provide an installer because:

a) Debian's user base is to a large extent much more technically capable
b) Debian has backports, which will do pretty much the same job anyway: For example a backported
kernel package from backports.debian.org will get you the updated i915 driver (and may even get you
a newer one than our installer would provide)

Hi there - first, we'll start with the external drivers issue:
• Canonical are correct, you don't need external drivers
• The installer isn't an external driver as such- it's "just" an updated version of the i915 driver that
came with 14.04 - depending on which hardware you have, it can provide performance improvements
or more hardware support and/or bugfixes, but there's no secret sauce here.

Next, let's look at graphics performance: If you're getting 3D acceleration at all, then you're good to go:
In a fairly non-technical test if you can run a game or 3D screensaver (lament, for instance) and get a
reasonable number of frames per second out, then you have support.

There's also the output of glxinfo: In particular look for the "OpenGL renderer string" - on my laptop
it says (for example): Mesa DRI Intel(R) Sandybridge Mobile - your's will say something similar, although
probably with a different codename than "Sandybridge".

Hope that helps.

Yes - that's telling you that the rendering is being done by Intel ® Haswell, which is a codename for one generation of the i915/i965 series, so you're getting hardware acceleration.

Yes: The packages are installed by configuring a package source in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/intellinuxgraphics.list

You can list packages installed with dpkg -l
and you can see where a package is installed from with apt-cache policy <package-name>

In this case, you are looking for a package with a name like: i915-3.xx-3.yy-dkms :

~$ dpkg -l i915\*

Removing that i915-* package (apt-get remove i915-…) will remove the upgraded
driver, next time you reboot you'll get the driver that shipped with your distribution.