How do I install the latest Mesa release?

Which is the preferred way to install the latest stable version of Mesa on Ubuntu? I believe that would be a PPA, but not the bleeding-edge one like xorg-edgers.

I would like to see a PPA that contains the latest stable release. Right now 10.3 has reached Release Candidate stage and development branched to 10.4, so the latest stable version is 10.2. Soon 10.3 will become the latest stable version and I'd like a PPA that would follow that. For comparison, xorg-edgers contains 10.3.0~git20140821 and oibaf has 10.4~git1408211930.

You can get the latest stable MESA driver using Kisak Mesa. This is the most up to date stable MESA driver as it appears to be regularly updated whenever a new release is made available.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kisak/kisak-mesa
sudo apt update && sudo apt dist-upgrade

It is being maintained by a guy that works at Valve and is very actively maintained

Remember it is a community PPA, so use at your own risk.

Recently Canonical also put up a PPA for latest stable MESA, but this one is not updated as often and you might as well not use it.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/updates
sudo apt update && sudo apt dist-upgrade

IMPORTANT

When you dist-upgrade Ubuntu from say 18.04 to 18.10 it is important to roll back the driver and use the original one provided by that distribution. If you are on Kisak PPA, then remove it using:

sudo ppa-purge ppa:kisak/kisak-mesa

If you have used Padoka Stable PPA, then remove it using:

sudo ppa-purge paulo-miguel-dias/pkppa

otherwise you might risk breaking the graphics driver in the next release. While that definitely is possible to recover from, it is huge and cumbersome task for even an experienced Linux power user.

Earlier

Previously I instructed people to use Padoka Stable Mesa, however, that PPA hasn't seen much activity for a long time now.

If you are on that PPA, I advise you to remove that by running:

sudo ppa-purge paulo-miguel-dias/pkppa

After that you should be able to install the Kisak PPA using the steps above. Before doing so, please make sure, that Padoka Stable Mesa has been successfully removed.