The "Graphics Stack" consists of a few different components:
- the Xorg (X) core and the Xorg intel driver
- various graphics libraries (Mesa for 3D; Cairo for 2D)
- some miscellaneous libraries and tools for development and video acceleration (eg the VAAPI libraries)
- the Intel kernel driver (the i915.ko kernel module)
From time to time Intel releases a set of these components, at specific recent versions, that have been
tested together and verified to work on a range of hardware.
Since Intel's schedule isn't synchronised with the various distributions this means there can be a time lag between
the most recent Intel release and what's in the various distributions: The goal of the update tool (which used to be
called an installer) is to make these Intel releases available on major distributions (currently Fedora and Ubuntu)
without requiring the user to upgrade their whole installation.
It's typically most useful for people who have very new hardware for which support has not yet made it into
the big distributions (although some people like to upgrade anyway). On Fedora it also provides VAAPII
graphics acceleration, which can greatly reduce CPU load when playing back certain video formats.
Given your hardware, I'd say the thing that might have the most impact for you is a newer version of Mesa -
but your best route to that is upgrading 14.04 to 16.04 - not using the installer.
And on a final note - I suspect you mostly see people complaining because it's the people with problems who post
the most (and that's something I'd say about pretty much any software really).
Hope that clears things up for you.
Can someone provide me with a link that describes IN ENGLISH, home user style, why one would need this. Most comments I've read say it don't even work, causes problems with their system etc. So either they are doing something wrong, or it is not good software? I've read everything on this site but it don't explain well to a home user.
I'm still struggling with the Term "latest Intel® Graphics Stack"
I have an old pc/laptop, so this might not even be good for me. I am also not using Ubuntu 16.04, but Mint KDE 17.1, which is Ubuntu 14.04.1
Are these drivers needed for newer Hardware, or is it only the newer Distro Kernel's?
Is it more for Gamers and not needed for the average user?
I'll end with posting my Graphics Specs