1. Introduction

This guide is for those users who would like to build the latest driver from scratch.

Section 3 is for people who only need build the 2D driver to try a new 2D feature or bug fix. Section 4 is for people who want to build the whole stack including 3D.

2. Getting source

To make the Intel graphics chipset work, below components are needed:

1, kernel module agpgart and drm: included in Linux kernel.

2, libdrm: included in freedesktop drm source.

3, Xorg 2D driver: xf86-video-intel.

4, Mesa and 3D driver.

To get the detailed download address for above components, please refer to http://intellinuxgraphics.org/download.html.

3. 2D only driver build

In order to test or use the latest Intel X driver, you typically don't need to upgrade other components of the graphics stack, like Mesa or the DRM drivers. In order to build the driver, you'll need several development packages installed (list taken from the Fedora build requirements for the driver):
- autoconf
- automake
- libtool
- hwdata (for PCI IDs)
- xorg-x11-server-Xorg
- xorg-x11-server-sdk
- libXvMC-devel
- mesa-libGL-devel
- libdrm-devel

If these packages are available, building should be as simple as:
$ ./autogen
$ make
$ sudo -c "make install"

Note that depending on your distribution, you may need extra flags, like --prefix=, --exec-prefix=, --libdir=, --sysconfdir=, etc. depending on where your X server is installed (see ./configure --help for details).

4. Whole stack building

We suppose you have downloaded all components under directory $DOWN_ROOT except kernel source.

4.1 Linux kernel

Just using an upstream kernel is fine in most cases, and you can build customized kernel if needed. The graphics related kernel modules include DRM (drm and i915) and AGPGART (agpgart and intel-agp).

4.2 libdrm

Build and install libdrm:

$ cd $DOWN_ROOT/drm

$ ./autogen.sh

Note: libdrm installs to /usr/local/lib by default. To install in /usr/lib run:

$ ./autogen.sh --prefix=/usr --exec-prefix=/

$ make

$ make install

libdrm.so will be installed to /usr/lib.

4.3 Xorg 2D driver

If you install xorg in another directory(refered as $XORG_DIR) instead of overriding the xorg shipped in your Linux distribution, you need set two macros at first:

$ export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=${XORG_DIR}/lib/pkgconfig:$PKG_CONFIG_PATH

$ export ACLOCAL="aclocal -I ${XORG_DIR}/share/aclocal"

Of course, if you install xserver to another directory, you need compile all xorg modules. As for the detailed guide about xserver and xorg module compilation, please refer to Xorg Modular Developers' Guide.

Note: You might need to use the latest Xorg and xserver release to sync with the latest intel driver.

The compilation of 2D driver is simple:

$ cd $DOWN_ROOT/xf86-video-intel

$ ./autogen.sh --prefix=${XORG_DIR}

$ make && make install

At last, 2D driver library file (intel_drv.so) will be installed to $XORG_DIR/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/.

4.4 Mesa and 3D driver

You can refer to http://wiki.x.org/wiki/Development/git for new building process and skip this section.

Please note that additional parameters might be needed to include features not enabled by default in Mesa builds. Those parameters must be appended to the ./autogen.sh build script to enable the features below:

• To enable floating-point textures support, add the '--enable-texture-float' parameter.
• To build GL ES1 libraries, add the '--enable-gles1' parameter.
• To build GL ES2 libraries, add the '--enable-gles2' parameter.
• If you only need Intel driver, you can specify it via the '--with-dri-drivers="i915 i965"' parameter.

5. Reference

[1] http://intellinuxgraphics.org/testing.html - Intel Linux graphics website.

[2] http://wiki.x.org/wiki/Development/git - Document about building and installing whole stack.

[3] http://wiki.x.org/wiki/ModularDevelopersGuide - Document about building and installing Xorg.