Newb Question: Vulkan-Intel downloads

This isn’t a request for help, so I posted in Community. I am just looking for information to help my education and my google-fu failed miserably, only returning things related to Intel processors with integrated graphics.

My system is an i7 13-gen with no integrated graphics and a discreet AMD 6600. When running garuda-update I notice that vulkan-radeon installs, which is what I expect. But I also see vulkan-intel being installed, which I wouldn’t expect.

Why would there be a package grabbed to include drivers/instruction sets for a graphics card that’s not installed?

Both of those packages are dependencies of the meta package garuda-video-linux-config.

❯ pacman -Qii garuda-video-linux-config
Name            : garuda-video-linux-config
Version         : 2:1.1.6-1
Description     : Meta configuration package for common open source drivers on Garuda Linux
Architecture    : any
URL             : https://gitlab.com/garuda-linux/applications/mhwd-db-garuda
Licenses        : GPL
Groups          : None
Provides        : None
Depends On      : xf86-video-ati  xf86-video-amdgpu  xf86-video-nouveau  vulkan-intel
                  vulkan-radeon  intel-media-driver  libvdpau-va-gl  libva-intel-driver
                  libva-mesa-driver  mesa-vdpau  vulkan-mesa-layers  vulkan-swrast
                  lib32-vulkan-intel  lib32-vulkan-radeon  lib32-mesa-vdpau
                  lib32-libva-intel-driver  lib32-libva-mesa-driver  lib32-vulkan-mesa-layers
Optional Deps   : opencl-mesa
                  lib32-opencl-mesa
                  intel-compute-runtime
                  libva-vdpau-driver
                  lib32-libva-vdpau-driver
Required By     : None
Optional For    : None
Conflicts With  : None
Replaces        : None
Installed Size  : 0.00 B
Packager        : Garuda Builder <[email protected]>
Build Date      : Sat 27 Jan 2024 09:44:34 PM EST
Install Date    : Mon 13 May 2024 09:09:16 PM EDT
Install Reason  : Explicitly installed
Install Script  : Yes
Validated By    : SHA-256 Sum
Backup Files    : None
Extended Data   : None

This meta package gets installed by default if you install with the free driver option (the non-free driver option gets a different set of packages). Bundling all those packages together like that ensures no matter what hardware people have, the packages they need for a good out-of-box experience will likely already be installed.

If you want to remove the packages you don’t need for your hardware, uninstall the meta package with pacman -Rs (the s will remove dependencies).

sudo pacman -Rs garuda-video-linux-config

Then explicitly install the specific packages you want to keep with pacman -S. In your case it is probably safe to drop all the Intel and Nouveau packages.

7 Likes

Oh, so that’s like a driver store for the garuda video package. Okay, that makes sense. Thank you for your insight!

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