Upgrading to latest version of OpenGL on Ubuntu 15.10

I currently have an intel integrated GPU Intel 5100 iris graphics and I would like to upgrade to the latest version of OpenGL available. I currently have OpenGL 3.0 and mesa 11.0.2 installed.


You dont have OpenGL 3.0... you have OpenGL 3.3 with some OpenGL 4.x extensions, because your card is OpenGL 4.x compliant.

I have Ubuntu 14.04.3 with Intel HD 4000 and Mesa 10.5.9 and i get:

glxinfo | grep OpenGL

OpenGL vendor string: Intel Open Source Technology Center
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Intel(R) Ivybridge Mobile 
OpenGL core profile version string: 3.3 (Core Profile) Mesa 10.5.9
OpenGL core profile shading language version string: 3.30
OpenGL core profile context flags: (none)
OpenGL core profile profile mask: core profile
OpenGL core profile extensions:
OpenGL version string: 3.0 Mesa 10.5.9
OpenGL shading language version string: 1.30
OpenGL context flags: (none)
OpenGL extensions:

Obviously it is not possible that i have a higher OpenGL version with an older card..!

That OpenGL 3.0 you see is the compatibility profile! Your actual Core Profile is 3.3 and in a few months maybe 4.x

So then you would need ppa:oibaf/graphics-drivers for the absolute latest drivers, but it is not recommended unless the intel driver reaches OpenGL 4.x compliance!


I know this isn't a very comprehensive answer, but your OpenGL version is tied to your graphics card, in this case the Intel 5100 Iris integrated graphics. I would first check for updates with sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade and see if that does it. If not, it is possible that your card does not support anything above OpenGL 3.0, but you could look for a PPA to get a more up to date version of your driver. This can be dangerous though, so be warned.