libGL error: unable to load driver: i965_dri.so – a Mesa 3D graphics library error

When you, for example, updated your Mesa 3D graphics library and you see such an error after having used the

linux-7tpy:~ # LIBGL_DEBUG=verbose glxinfo

command, you should know that’s something went wrong. Your DRI (Direct Rendering Infrastructure) driver doesn’t work. Consequently, you won’t start any game or other software that needs 3D acceleration.

I use openSuse 13.1 (32 bit) and Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 graphics card. I upgraded my Mesa 9.2.3 to Mesa 10.0.2. This wasn’t supported by the official repos; I just installed RPM from the X11:XOrg repo. I knew the there would be problems, but I did that. My Unity3D on PlayOnLinux and Wine was crashed. The 3D driver didn’t work. I had to fix it.

There are many threads on the topic in the Internet; however, none was good for me. I read the info I got form LIBGL_DEBUG=verbose glxinfo. And I found the solution – my driver was in a wrong directory!

My all DRI drivers were put after having been installed into:

/usr/lib/dri

Among them, there was i965_dri.so that I needed for my graphic card. I just copied this driver into:

/usr/lib/dri/updates

I ran the command:

linux-7tpy:~ # cp /usr/lib/dri/i965_dri.so /usr/lib/dri/updates/i965_dri.so

And when I ran glxinfo again, the error disappeared. To check if everything is OK, I also ran

linux-7tpy:~ # glxinfo | grep render
direct rendering: Yes
GLX_MESA_multithread_makecurrent, GLX_MESA_query_renderer,
GLX_MESA_multithread_makecurrent, GLX_MESA_query_renderer,
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Intel(R) 965GM x86/MMX/SSE2
GL_NV_conditional_render, GL_NV_depth_clamp, GL_NV_light_max_exponent,

Two things are important in this output:

direct rendering should be “yes”

“OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Intel(R) 965GM x86/MMX/SSE2” – my driver is running!

Read more at:

http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/glxinfo/

Now, when I start Unity3D, it works great.