Removal of xf86-video-intel

General system Newbie
1

I read that is better to remove xf86-video-intel driver. What is the safest method to see if i have to and what is the steps to do it?

2

It depends which intel hardware you have.

What does inxi -Fz show?

sudo pacman -R xf86-video-intel
reboot
3 
System:
  Kernel: 5.15.44-1-lts arch: x86_64 bits: 64 Desktop: KDE Plasma v: 5.24.5
    Distro: EndeavourOS
Machine:
  Type: Desktop System: ASUS product: All Series v: N/A
    serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: ASUSTeK model: H81M-C v: Rev X.0x serial: <superuser required>
    BIOS: American Megatrends v: 3602 date: 03/26/2018
CPU:
  Info: dual core model: Intel Pentium G3420 bits: 64 type: MCP cache:
    L2: 512 KiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 3166 min/max: 800/3200 cores: 1: 3154 2: 3178
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics
    driver: i915 v: kernel
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.3 driver: X: loaded: intel gpu: i915
    resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics (HSW GT1) v: 4.6 Mesa 22.1.1
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel 8 Series/C220 Series High Definition Audio
    driver: snd_hda_intel
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.15.44-1-lts running: yes
  Sound Server-2: PipeWire v: 0.3.51 running: yes
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet
    driver: r8169
  IF: enp3s0 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 223.58 GiB used: 100.18 GiB (44.8%)
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Western Digital model: WDS240G2G0A-00JH30
    size: 223.58 GiB
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 210.99 GiB used: 100.17 GiB (47.5%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1
Swap:
  ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 8.14 GiB used: 11.8 MiB (0.1%)
    dev: /dev/sda2
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 53.0 C mobo: 27.8 C
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Info:
  Processes: 159 Uptime: 43m Memory: 3.71 GiB used: 2.75 GiB (74.1%)
  Shell: Bash inxi: 3.3.16
4

I don’t know exactly where the line is on CPUs that need xf86-video-intel but you are close to it.

Are you having any issues? If not, I would leave things alone.

If you are, you can always try to remove it and see if your system works without it. I would make sure you have a copy of xf86-video-intel in your local package cache in case you need to reinstall it.

1 Like
5

Having xf86-video-intel installed might help with e.g. brightness control.
But as @dalto said, you can test and see if it is better to uninstall or not.

1 Like
6

I am afraid of damage my system if i remove it just for test

1 Like
7

I can understand that. It is your call of course. If all is working well, then no need to change anything.

But if some day you want to try this, there are (at least) 2 ways to fix the system if anything goes wrong:

  1. Use a TTY (for example press Ctrl-Alt-F3) and you have a terminal screen where you can run terminal commands like installing and uninstalling packages.
  2. With the help of the USB installer you can arch-chroot into the installed system and run terminal commands.

More help about arch-chroot e.g. from here: https://discovery.endeavouros.com/?s=arch-chroot

1 Like