Getting new Intel drivers might not be worth the trouble

Feb 17, 2016 10:08 GMT  ·  By

The Intel Graphics Installer for Linux is a cool little tool that gives users access to the latest graphics and video drivers from Intel, but only for a couple of major Linux distributions.

The Intel Graphics Installer is not known for its promptness, and we usually get updates for it when the supported OSes are almost closer to EOL (end of life). To be fair, things have improved somewhat, and we get updates a little big sooner. In any case, it's always nice to get proper drivers from Intel and not rely on third-party repositories.

This latest version of the tool only comes with support for two operating systems, Ubuntu 15.10 (Wily Werewolf) and Fedora 23, and all the rest have been deprecated.

Intel Graphics Installer for Linux 1.4.0 is here

"The Intel Graphics Installer for Linux allows you to easily install the latest graphics and video drivers for your Intel graphics hardware. This allows you to stay current with the latest enhancements, optimizations, and fixes to the Intel Graphics Stack to ensure the best user experience with your Intel graphics hardware," the official announcement reads.

The supported distributions are now Ubuntu 15.10 for 64-bit and 32-bit, and Fedora 23 for 64-bit and 32-bit. If you have Ubuntu 15.04 or Fedora 22, this tool won't work.

Unfortunately, there is an important caveat. The Intel developers warn people that attempting to "force" package upgrades may break the OS installation and that you shouldn’t force the installation.

What precisely is this forcing? Well, when you upgrade the package from the OS, you will be prompted that the packages are not safe. Since I hadn't read the announcement properly, I updated the packages despite the warning and I could no longer log into Unity. Long story short, I'm now using the Nouveau drivers for Nvidia and not the official Intel drivers. Reinstalling is the only way to really fix the problem.

More details about Intel Graphics Installer for Linux can be found on the official website. The latest version of the Intel Graphics Installer 1.4.0 can be downloaded from Softpedia, but keep in mind that you will need to be root in order to make it work.