Intel Graphics Installer vs stock driver

Question

I am running a Haswell ultrabook and just read about the Intel Graphics Installer, and Kubuntu 14.04.

I want to know, if there's an advantage, if I install.
If it's not running for 14.04, what would be the advantage if I install on 13.10?

Download link

Thanks.

14.04 is under development yet and usually as you should know playing with graphics under your own risk the advantages are always the same more features and production for you video-graphics if they are, the latest driver doesn't stand on stability 100% but discovering and reproduce the best out of your video. So it is common answer stability vs. new features — JoKeR, Feb 23 '14 at 16:02

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 22 '14 at 20:47

The intel-linux-graphics-installer v 1.0.4 does not support Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. You will receive an error that this distribution is not supported when trying to run the installer. I would guess vs 1.0.5 will include 14.04 LST support as 14.04 is mentioned in the documentation.

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 23 '14 at 17:58

Reading the README.in file from the source package, I found the section below. Looking for packages in trusty, I found that the trusty packages are up to date.

What it does:

The installer carries out the following tasks, prompting the user
for authorisation when a privileged operation needs to be carried out:

  - Adding a repository to the package manager configuration
    - This will be a collabora-hosted Yum or Apt repository,
      as appropriate to the target machine, during the testing phase.
    - An 01.org repository is a possible candidate for the actual release

  - Installing the Intel graphics stack:

                      | Ubuntu 13.10 (saucy)   | Fedora 19 (schrödinger’s)
     -----------------+------------------------+----------------------------
     i915-dkms        | -                      | -
     kernel           | -                      | 3.11.x (from fedora updates)
     libva            | 1.2.1                  | 1.2.1
     vaapi-driver     | 1.2.2                  | 1.2.2
     cairo            | 1.12.16                | 1.12.16
     xf86-video-intel | -                      | 2.99.906
     -----------------+------------------------+----------------------------

The installer also allows the user to roll back to the vanilla
versions of all of the above that ship with their distribution.

I couldn't find benchmarks on the net that answer your question about improvements in power consumption between the stock saucy and the newer driver versions. This site may not be suited for such a topic.

So for trusty, there's no need for the 01.org repo? In fact, that answers my question. It's not like novou vs nvidia driver? — davidbaumann, Mar 03 '14 at 09:32

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 23 '14 at 11:00

I've found the advantage to be better video performance and less power consumption.

I had been using the installer under 13.10, where it performed flawlessly. However, I upgraded to 14.04 last week, where the drivers reverted to the default, since the Installer isn't supported yet. Full screen HD currently shows some tearing and the box is noticeably warmer to the touch. It's not the end of the world, but I do wish I'd waited to upgrade until after a installer was released.

Of course, my experience is somewhat anecdotal. I'm running this on a small, fanless system with an i3-3220T chip that has Intel HD Graphics 2500. Yours will probably preform better overall, being more powerful hardware.

Nice to read, so Iguess installing will extend battery life in my case... — davidbaumann, Apr 23 '14 at 14:11
I've noticed similar things when upgrading to 14.04 from 13.10. Fullscreen HD videos are a little less smooth and there is some screentear now, where there wasn't before. I have an Intel Core i3-4130T w/ HD 4400 graphics. — Broseph, Apr 27 '14 at 16:57

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 23 '14 at 16:34

0

these are advantages of the new Intel Graphics Installer vs stock driver in 13.10 is this what you mean?

1.Support for Intel Celeron N281 CPU w/Intel HD Graphics

2.SandyBridge’s New Acceleration (SNA) enabled by default on all UXA-supported hardware

3.Power saving improvements for “Haswell” chips w/Intel HD Graphics

4.Driver support for Iris Pro 5200, and Intel HD 5000 & 5100 graphics

5.MPEG-2 encoding improvements for 3rd and 4th Gen Intel CPUs paired with Intel HD Graphics

6.Rendering fix for DotA on Wine

answered Feb 23 '14 at 16:34

JoKeR

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I can read... but how about reality? Is it helping me? – davidbaumann Feb 23 '14 at 16:35
what advantage yet you need? I can't get it, maybe you should paraphrase your question or some. As you asked about the advantage. – JoKeR Feb 23 '14 at 16:38
Will it decrease power consumption? Is it doing more than a "good feeling"? Or will it just give me a driver, that is 2 days younger than the one in stock kernel? – davidbaumann Feb 23 '14 at 16:39
it's written in 3. line Power saving improvements for “Haswell” chips w/Intel HD Graphics – JoKeR Feb 23 '14 at 16:41
Advertisement... – davidbaumann Feb 23 '14 at 16:43
I won't say advertisement as I said before it's not 100% stability vs stack some people say it worked for them flawlessly some said it's buggy – JoKeR Feb 23 '14 at 16:45

Intel Graphics Installer vs stock driver

4 Answers4