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I searched on the internet but couldn't find exactly what I am looking for. I have a DELL XPS 13 9360 running Ubuntu 16.10 and I'm pretty sure that it's running the generic video drivers. I've downloaded the intel tool from https://01.org/linuxgraphics/downloads/intel-graphics-update-tool-linux-os-v2.0.3, installed it and rebooted the operating system. Now I have two questions:

  • How do I know if I'm running the intel drivers?

And just in case that I am not using them already ...

  • How do I get them to be the ones being used?

Thanks for the help.

cl-netbox
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Ray Booysen
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    That was not a good idea to install those drivers. The default Intel drivers are not "generic" but the stable Intel drivers. It is not Windows. ;-) You can see which drivers are installed by version names. – Pilot6 Mar 16 '17 at 17:18

2 Answers2

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The first and most easy option to check whether you are using intel graphics and drivers would be to open the System Settings application and then open the Details tab ... there in Overview :

enter image description here

The intel drivers are installed and in use by default, there's really no need to download and install anything unless you have a dedicated NVIDIA adapter and want to use proprietary NVIDIA drivers instead. You can check which drivers you use by opening a terminal and executing this command :

lspci -k | grep VGA (when you only have an integrated intel GPU) or lspci -k | grep -EA2 'VGA|3D' (if you have an additional NVIDIA GPU). But as far as I know, DELL XPS 13 9360 comes with an integrated intel HD Graphics 620 solution. Conclusion : everything works out-of-the-box.

To check which video drivers are installed in the operating system, just execute this command : 

$ dpkg --get-selections | grep xserver-xorg-video  
xserver-xorg-video-all              install
xserver-xorg-video-amdgpu           install
xserver-xorg-video-ati              install
xserver-xorg-video-fbdev            install
xserver-xorg-video-intel            install
xserver-xorg-video-nouveau          install
xserver-xorg-video-qxl              install
xserver-xorg-video-radeon           install
xserver-xorg-video-vesa             install
xserver-xorg-video-vmware           install

Find other available video drivers in the repositories with : $ apt search xserver-xorg-video

You can check which intel drivers versions are available and which one is installed by executing : 

$ apt policy xserver-xorg-video-intel
xserver-xorg-video-intel:
  Installed: 2:2.99.917+git20160706-1ubuntu1
  Candidate: 2:2.99.917+git20160706-1ubuntu1
  Version table:
 *** 2:2.99.917+git20160706-1ubuntu1 500
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu yakkety/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

More details about the installed drivers you get with : sudo lshw -c video and modinfo i915

cl-netbox
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  • This does not answer the question at all. You'd better find which packages and which versions of xserver-xorg... are installed by those Intel drivers if you really want to be helpful. – Pilot6 Mar 16 '17 at 18:53
  • It is much better. But the it is difficult to tell which driver is installed. when you install them with that Intel installer the versions changed. I do not remember what is there, like intel-bla-bla. – Pilot6 Mar 18 '17 at 11:14
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    Yes @Pilot6, I agree with you, I once tested this intel tool and it ruined a lot, so we should stick with the default drivers. Ray should follow your advice and uninstall it. :) – cl-netbox Mar 18 '17 at 11:16
  • The main problem that it is tough to remove those drivers. – Pilot6 Mar 18 '17 at 11:17
  • Thanks @cl-netbox, this got me a lot of the way. When I run apt policy xserver-xorg-video-intel it tells me that nothing is installed. Is this normal? – Ray Booysen Apr 06 '17 at 21:53
  • @RayBooysen : As you said in your question, you are having the drivers from the external intel graphics update tool installed, when you uninstall them, you can install the default xserver-xorg-video-intel drivers. :) – cl-netbox Apr 07 '17 at 07:26
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The kernel boot parameter "nomodesetting" can cause an Ubuntu system with Intel video drivers installed to still stick to generic software rendering.

Check with the command

    cat /proc/cmdline

If the parameter nomodesetting appears in the output command line try rebooting the system but with nomodesetting temporarily removed from the boot parameters.

(This guide for how to add boot parameters can be useful if you wonder how to temporarily alter boot parameters: How do I add a kernel boot parameter?)

Once booted up, check what video drivers your system is used and how it performs in general (open system settings->details, start glxgears etc).

If temporarily removing nomodesetting did the trick, you can follow the guide mentioned above to ensure that nomodesetting is permanently removed from the boot parameters.

One reason an Ubuntu installation might have nomodesetting set might be that on the particular machine, booting the installation media for Ubuntu only showed a blank screen instead of the installation program unless the parameter nomodesetting was selected to be on. Then the installation program assumed the boot parameter should be set when installing the kernel and grub on the machine, an assumption which actually is reasonable.

This is what bit me when I installed Ubuntu 16.04 and 18.04 and I struggled to get accelerated graphics. Seemed like all Intel drivers was installed "out of the box" but then nomodesetting simply kept them from being used.

IllvilJa
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  • for me remove nomodeset from GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT did the trick for the intel i915 driver. Nice! – 5422m4n Apr 30 '19 at 12:13