Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Ready With Mesa 22.0, Early Intel Arc Graphics Enabled & Amber Added

At the end of March Ubuntu 22.04 "Jammy Jellyfish" successfully transitioned from the former Mesa 21.3 series to Mesa 22.0 as the current stable series for these open-source OpenGL/Vulkan drivers. There are also a few changes to mention with Ubuntu 22.04's Mesa support this LTS cycle.

Mesa 22.0.1 has made it into the Jammy archive as the current latest point release in the Mesa 22.0 series. This is good to see but not at all unexpected given the Mesa 22.0 cycle came with sufficient time for landing Mesa 22.0 into this all important Ubuntu long-term support release.

It is notable though that Ubuntu 22.04's Mesa packaging is carrying a patch for enabling Intel DG2/Alchemist discrete GPU PCI IDs enabled. While Mesa 22.0 out-of-the-box doesn't have those DG2 PCI IDs enabled, Ubuntu 22.04 is doing so to at least provide some level of working support for Intel's Arc Graphics with the Ubuntu 22.04 desktop. Ubuntu 22.04 LTS out-of-the-box is using a Linux 5.15 LTS kernel and patches are needed there too for DG2/Alchemist especially with the amount of i915 DRM patches that landed in 5.16 through 5.18 for further ironing out the Alchemist GPU support.

Intel Introduces The Arc A-Series Mobile Graphics

It remains to be seen just how good the Intel Arc "Alchemist" support will be out of the box on Ubuntu 22.04 until I get my hands on hardware for testing, but with this DG2 patching at least is aiming for some level of support. Given all the ongoing upstream work, for the best performance and features though I'd recommend running Mesa Git and at least Linux 5.17~5.18. But again more specific recommendations once being able to put Intel Arc Graphics through its paces under Linux.

Another Mesa change to mention for Ubuntu 22.04 LTS is Mesa-Amber has been added to the archive. Mesa-Amber is for the old Mesa 21.3 branch with support for the old vintage Mesa drivers. That's as part of Mesa classic drivers being retired but will receive whatever little bit of maintenance patches by way of the "Amber" branch. Don't expect much churn with Mesa-Amber but at least those classic old Mesa drivers are there for those interested with the likes of ATI R100/R200 graphics cards.

Ubuntu 22.04 LTS is due for release on 21 April.