Mesa Driver Installation¶

Mesa provides the OpenGL and Vulkan drivers (RADV) required for BC-250 GPU support.

Mesa Requirements¶

Minimum Version¶

Mesa 25.1.0 or newer is required

BC-250 (Cyan Skillfish / gfx1013) support added in Mesa 25.1
No manual patching needed (upstream support)
Earlier versions will not work

Recommended Version¶

Mesa 25.3.x+ recommended for stability

Bug fixes and performance improvements over earlier versions
Better compatibility and performance
Mesa 25.3.6 confirmed working on Fedora 43 (March 2026)
Mesa 25.1.3+ is minimum, but 25.3.x is the current validated stable target

Mesa and Governor Independence

The cyan-skillfish-governor tool works independently of Mesa version and kernel version. Mesa 25.1+ is specifically required for GPU 3D acceleration (OpenGL/Vulkan), not for power management or fan control. These are separate concerns.

Upstream Support

As of Mesa 25.1, BC-250 support is included upstream. No custom patches or compilation needed!

Checking Mesa Version¶

# Check installed Mesa version
glxinfo | grep "OpenGL version"

# Example output:
# OpenGL version string: 4.6 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 25.1.5

# Check Vulkan driver
vulkaninfo | grep "driverName"

# Should output: driverName = radv

Installation by Distribution¶

Fedora 43¶

Mesa 25.1+ is in official repositories:

# Update system (includes Mesa)
sudo dnf upgrade --refresh

# Verify Mesa version
dnf list mesa-\*
glxinfo | grep "OpenGL version"

No additional steps needed!

Fedora 42 is End of Life

Fedora 42 reached EOL. Upgrade to Fedora 43 (Mesa 25.x in repos).

Arch Linux / CachyOS¶

Mesa 25.1+ in official repos:

# Install/update Mesa
sudo pacman -S mesa vulkan-radeon

# Verify
pacman -Q mesa
glxinfo | grep "OpenGL version"

Debian¶

On Debian 13 (trixie), backports carries a recent enough Mesa. There is no reason to reach for experimental or sid anymore.

# Add trixie-backports
echo "deb http://deb.debian.org/debian trixie-backports main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/backports.list

sudo apt update

# Install Mesa from backports
sudo apt install -t trixie-backports mesa-vulkan-drivers libgl1-mesa-dri mesa-utils

# Verify
glxinfo | grep "OpenGL version"

At the time of writing, trixie-backports ships mesa 26.1.2-1~bpo13+1, which is well past the 25.1 floor this board needs. Reported in #37.

Backports is built against stable, so it does not drag in a chain of unstable dependencies the way experimental does. Prefer it.

Older Debian and Linux Mint

On Debian 12 (bookworm), bookworm-backports only reaches mesa 25.0.7-2~bpo12+1, which lands just under the 25.1 floor. Mint releases based on bookworm inherit that. Those either compile from source or move to a trixie base.

Ubuntu¶

Mesa 25.1.5 available via PPA:

# Add PPA (example - check for current BC-250 compatible PPA)
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kisak/kisak-mesa

# Update and install
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

# Verify
glxinfo | grep "OpenGL version"

Ubuntu PPA Verification

Before using the Kisak PPA, verify it provides Mesa 25.1+. Check PPA status or test installation before relying on it for BC-250 support.

Bazzite¶

Mesa 25.1+ included by default:

# Check version
rpm -qa | grep mesa

# Update if needed
rpm-ostree upgrade

Manjaro¶

Mesa in official repos:

# Update system
sudo pacman -Syu

# Verify Mesa
pacman -Q mesa

Verifying Installation¶

Check OpenGL¶

# Install mesa-utils if not present
# Fedora: sudo dnf install mesa-utils
# Arch: sudo pacman -S mesa-utils

# Check OpenGL renderer
glxinfo | grep "OpenGL renderer"

# Should show:
# OpenGL renderer string: AMD Radeon Graphics (radv gfx1013 LLVM 18.1.8 DRM 3.59 6.18.18-200.fc43.x86_64)

llvmpipe Means No GPU

If you see "llvmpipe" as the renderer, the GPU driver is NOT working. You're using CPU software rendering.

Check Vulkan¶

# Install vulkan-tools
# Fedora: sudo dnf install vulkan-tools
# Arch: sudo pacman -S vulkan-tools

# Check Vulkan device
vulkaninfo | grep deviceName

# Should show:
# deviceName = AMD Radeon Graphics (RADV GFX1013)

Verify RADV Driver¶

# Check driver is RADV (not AMDVLK)
vulkaninfo | grep "driverName"

# Should show: driverName = radv

Environment Variables¶

Required Variables¶

# Add to /etc/environment or ~/.bashrc

# Force RADV driver (not AMDVLK)
AMD_VULKAN_ICD=RADV

Optional Variables¶

RADV_DEBUG options:

# Fix some graphical glitches
RADV_DEBUG=nohiz

# Disable compute queue (may not be needed on Mesa 25.1+)
# RADV_DEBUG=nocompute

Apply globally:

# Edit /etc/environment
sudo nano /etc/environment

# Add:
AMD_VULKAN_ICD=RADV
RADV_DEBUG=nohiz

Apply per-game in Steam:

RADV_DEBUG=nohiz %command%

Mesa Performance Variables¶

For OpenGL applications:

# Use Zink (OpenGL over Vulkan) for better performance
MESA_LOADER_DRIVER_OVERRIDE=zink

Zink Overhead

Zink adds slight overhead but can improve compatibility and performance for some OpenGL applications. Test per-game.

Flatpak Mesa Override¶

Problem: Flatpak applications use runtime Mesa, which may be outdated.

Solution: Override with mesa-git

# Add flathub-beta repository
flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub-beta https://flathub.org/beta-repo/flathub-beta.flatpakrepo

# Install mesa-git for runtime 24.08
flatpak install --system flathub-beta org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.mesa-git//24.08
flatpak install --system flathub-beta org.freedesktop.Platform.GL32.mesa-git//24.08

# Set environment for Flatpak
sudo mkdir -p /etc/systemd/system/service.d
sudo bash -c 'echo -e "[Service]\nEnvironment=FLATPAK_GL_DRIVERS=mesa-git" > /etc/systemd/system/service.d/99-flatpak-mesa-git.conf'

# Reboot
sudo reboot

Flatpak Runtime Dependency

Flatpaks on runtime 23.08 or older cannot use Mesa 25.1. They must be on runtime 24.08+.

Compilation (Advanced)¶

When to Compile Mesa¶

Usually not needed, but compile if: - Distribution doesn't have Mesa 25.1+ yet - Testing newest Mesa-git features - Development/testing purposes

Mesa Compilation Guide¶

Dependencies (Fedora):

sudo dnf install git meson ninja-build gcc-c++ \
    libdrm-devel libXrandr-devel libXext-devel \
    libXdamage-devel libX11-devel libxcb-devel \
    libxshmfence-devel libXxf86vm-devel libXfixes-devel \
    wayland-devel wayland-protocols-devel \
    llvm-devel libunwind-devel zlib-devel \
    expat-devel elfutils-libelf-devel python3-mako \
    flex bison

Clone and Build:

# Clone Mesa
git clone https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa.git
cd mesa

# Configure
meson setup build \
    --buildtype=release \
    -Dgallium-drivers=radeonsi \
    -Dvulkan-drivers=amd \
    -Dplatforms=x11,wayland \
    -Dglx=dri

# Compile (use -j for parallel build)
ninja -C build -j$(nproc)

# Install (may need to backup old Mesa first)
sudo ninja -C build install

Compilation Time: 10-30 minutes depending on CPU

Backup Before Installing

Compiling and installing Mesa system-wide can break your system if done incorrectly. Only do this if you know what you're doing.

Troubleshooting Mesa Issues¶

GPU Not Detected¶

Symptoms: - vulkaninfo shows no devices - glxinfo shows llvmpipe

Causes: 1. Mesa < 25.1 installed 2. amdgpu kernel module not loaded 3. Kernel parameters incorrect

Solutions:

# Check kernel module
lsmod | grep amdgpu
# If empty, driver not loaded

# Check kernel messages
dmesg | grep -i amdgpu
# Look for errors

# Verify Mesa version
glxinfo | grep "OpenGL version"
# Must be 25.1+

# Check if nomodeset is still active
cat /proc/cmdline
# Should NOT contain "nomodeset"

Software Rendering (llvmpipe)¶

Symptom:

glxinfo | grep "OpenGL renderer"
# Shows: "llvmpipe (LLVM 18.1.8, 256 bits)"

Cause: GPU driver not working, falling back to CPU rendering

Solutions: 1. Install Mesa 25.1+ 2. Remove nomodeset from GRUB 3. Ensure amdgpu module loaded 4. Check kernel version (6.12-6.14)

AMDVLK Instead of RADV¶