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Mesa

The open-source OpenGL, Vulkan, and graphics driver stack.

Mesa provides Linux's OpenGL, Vulkan, OpenCL, and EGL implementations, plus the userspace component of most open-source GPU drivers: Intel iris and i965, AMD radeonsi, Nvidia nouveau, ARM Mali Panfrost, Qualcomm freedreno, Broadcom v3d, and several others. Each driver maps the high-level API calls to the GPU's specific command stream.

Brian Paul started the project in 1993 as a free OpenGL implementation when there were no open-source 3D libraries. Over the decades Mesa has become the foundation of all graphics on Linux that doesn't use Nvidia's proprietary driver. Recent Mesa releases ship Vulkan drivers for AMD (radv), Intel (anv), Qualcomm (turnip), Broadcom (v3dv), and others.

Mesa is critical infrastructure for the entire Linux desktop and gaming ecosystem. The improvements to AMD's open-source graphics stack in particular — driven by Mesa's radv Vulkan driver — are a major reason Linux gaming has become viable in the last few years (alongside Valve's Proton and dxvk).

Already installed on most Linux desktops.
Mesa userspace tools:
  Debian/Ubuntu: sudo apt install mesa-utils
  Fedora/RHEL:   sudo dnf install mesa-libGL
  Arch:          sudo pacman -S mesa