Software support

Mac OS X

Mac OS X 10.4 supports the GMA 950, since it was used in previous revisions of the MacBook (but not MacBook Pros) and even some 17-inch iMacs.[48] It has been used in all Intel-based Mac minis.[49] Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard contains drivers for the GMA X3100, which were used in a recent revision of the MacBook range.[50]

Late-release versions of Mac OS X 10.4 also support the GMA 900 due to its use in the Apple Developer Transition Kit, which was used in the PowerPC-to-Intel transition. However, special modifications to the kext file must be made to enable Core Image and Quartz Extreme.

Although the MacBook line no longer uses the x3100, Mac OS X 10.5 ships with drivers supporting it that require no modifications to the kext file.

FreeBSD

FreeBSD 7.1 supports the following Intel graphic chipsets: G945/GME945/Q965/GM965/GME965/G33/Q33/Q35/G35/G45/Q45.

Linux

Intel has had a long history of producing or commissioning open source drivers for its graphics chips, with all chipsets dating back to the i810 having open 2D and 3D drivers for Linux. Intel is the only major graphics hardware vendor to do so. (For an analysis by company see Graphics hardware and FOSS.)

In August 2006, Intel added support to the open-source X.Org/XFree86 drivers for the latest 965 series that include the GMA (X)3000 core.[51] These drivers were developed for Intel by Tungsten Graphics.[52]

In May 2007, version 2.0 of the driver (xorg-video-intel) was released, which added support for the 965GM chipset. In addition, the 2.0 driver added native video mode programming support for all chipsets from i830 forward. This version added support for automatic video mode detection and selection, monitor hot plug, dynamic extended and merged desktops and per-monitor screen rotation. These features are built in to the X.Org 7.3 X server release and will eventually be supported across most of the open source X.Org video drivers.[53] Version 2.1, released in July 2007, added support for the G33, Q33 and Q35 chipsets.[54] G35 is also supported by the Linux driver.[55]

As is common for X.Org drivers on Linux, the license is a combination of GPL (for the Linux kernel parts) and MIT (for all other parts).[56]

The drivers were mainly developed by Intel and Tungsten Graphics (under contract) since the chipsets documentations were not publicly available for a long time. In January 2008, Intel released the complete developer documentation for their latest chipsets (965 and G35), allowing for further external developers’ involvement. [57]

intel_hal.so

The driver source contains references to a currently-unavailable binary named "intel_hal.so". It is entirely optional, and the advantages are not clear; ostensibly they are increased performance and/or additional features. References in the open source code indicate that it contains or contained (at least) Macrovision support and some minor, optional 3D optimization routines. Calls to the Macrovision code inside the binary were later removed from the 2D driver.[58][59]

GMA 500

There is no sufficient driver support for the GMA 500. The driver wasn't developed in-house and will not work with kernels newer than 2.6.24. Newer distributions like Ubuntu 8.10 with a newer kernel will not work properly.[60][61]