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Ubuntu now has a more official PPA to get Mesa updates

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Timo Aaltonen noted on his blog that the 'Ubuntu-X' team now have an 'Updates' PPA for you to get the latest Mesa on Ubuntu 16.04 and Ubuntu 16.10.

This is likely a result of Feral Interactive's call for a PPA for this exact purpose. So it's good to see something proper come out of it.

Note: I have not tested this, since I use Antergos. I'm sure it has been thoroughly tested by the Ubuntu team involved in it.

If you don't know what Mesa is, I wrote an article explaining Mesa in a little more detail recently, so check that out. You will usually want it for Intel or AMD graphics, but you likely want the proprietary drivers for NVIDIA.

It's good to see a slightly more official way to do it on Ubuntu, as users were relying on the 'Padoka Stable Mesa' PPA which seems to be a version behind.

So now on Ubuntu you can do this to get the latest Mesa version for 16.04 and 16.10:
Quotesudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/updates

Then run:
Quotesudo apt update && sudo apt dist-upgrade

If you want to revert the changes you can do this:
Quotesudo apt install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/updates


Hopefully in future adding a PPA just to update Mesa won't be needed. For now though, if you want to keep playing the latest Linux game ports you will likely need an up to date Mesa. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Drivers, Mesa
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Pompesdesky Mar 28, 2017
I guess this is also available on Ubuntu based distros like Mint ? And for someone (like me) currently using padokka ppa it should be removed first before adding the new Ubuntu ppa ?
abelthorne Mar 28, 2017
Quoting: calexilcurrently this breaks vlc, in case you use that.
probably wanna stick on pkppa until Timo fixes it
Just discovered this too, which is quite an issue on Ubuntu MATE (the version I use), as it's the default video player and removal might have removed some metapackages. Back to Padoka's.

Quoting: PompesdeskyI guess this is also available on Ubuntu based distros like Mint ? And for someone (like me) currently using padokka ppa it should be removed first before adding the new Ubuntu ppa ?
If you can use Padoka's PPA on Mint, you can use this one also, though I'd recommend staying on Padoka's because of the packaging issue (isn't VLC part of Mint's default packages?).

Anyway, if you want to try, you definitely have to properly remove Padoka's PPA first:
1) sudo ppa-purge ppa:paulo-miguel-dias/pkppa to remove it
2) reboot
3) sudo apt-get autoremove --purge to remove the orphan dependancies
4) follow the instructions of the article to add the Ubuntu X PPA


Last edited by abelthorne on 28 March 2017 at 9:54 am UTC
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