Graphics driver: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 02:51, 4 May 2026

Many desktop environments need a graphics driver to work properly. Install Mesa drivers for all graphics cards before installing a desktop. Mesa-gallium is an open-source OpenGL implementation that supports a variety of hardware and software drivers, including Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, and more.

mesa-dri-gallium: Mesa drivers for all Graphics cards.
mesa-va-gallium: Mesa vaapi drivers for all video decoding acceleration.

Graphics cards of recent vintage may need additional drivers to work at their full potential. Install additional graphics drivers from the below depending on your hardware. If you are unsure about your graphics card,refer Identify graphics card section.

Then, install an appropriate driver.

For Intel video chipsets, see Intel Video
For AMD Radeon Chipsets, see Radeon Video
For Nvidia Chipsets, see Nvidia Video
For legacy Xf86 drivers Xf86 Video

Troubleshooting

Identify graphics card

If you are unsure about your graphics card, information about the particular video cards that are installed in the computer may be found in the list of PCI devices.

Install the package pciutils first using the command:

#apk add pciutils

Now use lspci command from the pciutils package to identify the graphics card as follows:

lspci -k | grep -EA3 "VGA|3D|Display"

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-Many [[Desktop environments and Window managers|desktop environments]] need a graphics driver to work properly. Graphics cards of recent vintage need a driver to work. So one needs to install one of the below graphics drivers before installing a [[Installation#Post-Installation|desktop]]:
+Many [[Desktop environments and Window managers|desktop environments]] need a graphics driver to work properly. Install Mesa drivers for all graphics cards before installing a [[Installation#Post-Installation|desktop]]. Mesa-gallium is an open-source OpenGL implementation that supports a variety of hardware and software drivers, including Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, and more.
-Information about the video cards that are installed in the computer may be found using <code>lspci</code> command, which is not available by default. Refer the [[How_to_get_regular_stuff_working#Hardware_Management|instructions]] to install {{pkg|pciutils}} package.
+* {{Pkg|mesa-dri-gallium}}: Mesa drivers for all Graphics cards.
+* {{Pkg|mesa-va-gallium}}: Mesa vaapi drivers for all video decoding acceleration.
-To identify the graphics card (the Subsystem output shows the specific model), issue the below command:
+Graphics cards of recent vintage may need additional drivers to work at their full potential. Install additional graphics drivers from the below depending on your hardware. If you are unsure about your graphics card,refer [[#Identify graphics card|Identify graphics card]] section.
-{{cmd|<Nowiki>lspci -v | grep -A1 -e VGA -e 3D</Nowiki>}}
 Then, install an appropriate driver.
@@ Line 11: / Line 11: @@
 * For AMD Radeon Chipsets, see [[Radeon Video]]
 * For Nvidia Chipsets, see [[Nvidia Video]]
+* For legacy Xf86 drivers [[Xf86 Video]]
-To install X11 based [[Desktop environments and Window managers|desktop]], you may want to install specific Xorg xf86 driver packages for your video card's chipset, as they may support specific features, effects and acceleration modes, and avoid error messages during X initialization. However, the most basic X features should work fine with just using the default kernel video-modesetting drivers.
+== Troubleshooting ==
-{{Tip| xf86 driver packages follow standard naming conventions. So information found in  [https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Xorg#Driver_installation ArchWiki], or [https://packages.gentoo.org/categories/x11-drivers Gentoo wiki] are to a large degree, also applicable to configuring the video hardware on Alpine Linux, except for proprietary drivers which are not available.}}
+=== Identify graphics card ===
-To see available xf86 video driver packages run:
+If you are unsure about your graphics card, information about the particular video cards that are installed in the computer may be found in the list of PCI devices.
-{{cmd|$ apk search xf86-video}}
-* For Sis video chipset install {{pkg|xf86-video-sis}}
+Install the package {{pkg|pciutils}} first using the command: {{Cmd|#apk add pciutils}}
-* For VMware guests use {{pkg|xf86-video-vmware}}
-* For VirtualBox guests use {{pkg|xf86-video-vboxvideo}}. Refer [[VirtualBox_guest_additions|VirtualBox guest additions]]
+Now use <code>lspci</code> command from the {{pkg|pciutils}} package to identify the graphics card as follows:
-* For Hyper-V guests use {{pkg|xf86-video-fbdev}}. Refer [[Hyper-V_guest_services|Hyper-V guest services]].
+{{cmd|<Nowiki>lspci -k | grep -EA3 "VGA|3D|Display"</Nowiki>}}
-* For KVM/QEMU guests refer [[QEMU#Using_Xorg_inside_Qemu|Xorg within QEMU]]
+== See also ==
+* [[Kernel Modesetting]]
+* [[Uvesafb|Generic FB driver]]
+* [[Xf86 Video]]
 [[category:Graphics]]
-[[category: Drivers]]
+[[category:Drivers]]
-[[category: Desktop]]