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Mesa 12.0.6 has released and it brings with it a bunch of bug fixes. While the latest stable version is Mesa 13.0.3, those sticking with the older Mesa 12 will still like their fixes.

You can see the release announcement here.

No major new features of course, since this is the much older stable branch. It does, however, fix major GPU lockup possibilities. Mesa 12.0.5 was supposed to be the last update to the 12 series, but it seems this was serious enough to warrant an extra point release.

From the announcement:
QuoteMesa 12.0.6 is now available.

Note: This is an extra release for the 12.0 stable branch, as per developers'
feedback. There are no plans to have further 12.0.x releases. Users are
encouraged to migrate to the 13.0 series in order to obtain future fixes.

In this release we have:

Patch for the CSO issue [mentioned by Marek] which might lead to GPU lockups
and other unexpected behaviour across all gallium drivers, independently; a
handful of radeonsi, nouveau and i965 fixes are present.

Additionally NIR, ANV and GLX/DRI3 got some updates, addressing a range of
issues.

Like Emil said, you really should update to Mesa 13 unless you have serious issues. In that case, you should really report them if you haven't already. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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8 comments

armageddon51 Jan 24, 2017
While I have a vague idea of what MESA is, how do I install this ? I use Linux Mint cinnamon 18.1 and their nouveau driver with my old ATI card (HD5550). Can I install this MESA thing instead ? Can someone help me with that ? Tx
Liam Dawe Jan 24, 2017
Quoting: armageddon51While I have a vague idea of what MESA is, how do I install this ? I use Linux Mint cinnamon 18.1 and their nouveau driver with my old ATI card (HD5550). Can I install this MESA thing instead ? Can someone help me with that ? Tx
If you're not using the proprietary driver, you will be using Mesa.

nouveau is for NVIDIA, so you will be using a different part of Mesa for an AMD card.
tuubi Jan 24, 2017
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If you want to upgrade to Mesa 12/13 on Mint 18, for now you'll need to resort to a PPA like the xorg-edgers one. This is risky and might break future OS upgrades (or worse) unless you know what you're doing. It seems like the next Mint point release just might bring in Mesa 13 as an optional update. That's still a ways off though.
lucinos Jan 24, 2017
Quoting: armageddon51While I have a vague idea of what MESA is, how do I install this ? I use Linux Mint cinnamon 18.1 and their nouveau driver with my old ATI card (HD5550). Can I install this MESA thing instead ? Can someone help me with that ? Tx

you have ATI so you are not using "nouveau".

A simple command to give your system info is

inxi -F
tuxintuxedo Jan 24, 2017
There is a stable Mesa ppa for Ubuntu, which you can use. As the others said, you are already using Mesa (though the name of the driver is different).
armageddon51 Jan 24, 2017
Ok well I am using the default one coming with Mint. Confused, the opensource driver, which also can be use with Nvidia system, is made of different parts and one of them is called "nouveau" for Nvidia cards and for Intel, AMD is called MESA,right ?

The driver manager does not suggest any video driver at all for my system. So if I understand if I am using the opensource driver, I am already using MESA then. Go figure.
tuubi Jan 24, 2017
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Quoting: armageddon51Ok well I am using the default one coming with Mint. Confused, the opensource driver, which also can be use with Nvidia system, is made of different parts and one of them is called "nouveau" for Nvidia cards and for Intel, AMD is called MESA,right ?

The driver manager does not suggest any video driver at all for my system. So if I understand if I am using the opensource driver, I am already using MESA then. Go figure.
Consider Mesa an umbrella project and a collection of shared libraries and code for open Linux graphics drivers. Your system uses the radeon driver, whereas nouveau is used for Nvidia chips. I understand how this is confusing, especially as most Mesa-related news on sites like this tend to refer to AMD a lot.

Mint 18.1 provides the Mesa packages from Ubuntu 16.04.1, so the version is 11.2.0 I think. If you need to upgrade for better opengl support, you might want to check out that stable Mesa PPA @tuxintuxedo mentioned. I think it can be found here.


Last edited by tuubi on 24 January 2017 at 7:39 pm UTC
armageddon51 Jan 24, 2017
Thanks Tuubi. A bit better.
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