claude-code/plans/elegant-prancing-allen.md

Vulkan Installation Verification Plan

Goal

Verify that Vulkan is correctly installed and functional on the system, and determine whether the Mesa warning about incomplete Ivy Bridge support is a concern.

Background Context

Hardware: Intel HD Graphics 4000 (Ivy Bridge) - circa 2012 Current Status:

• Vulkan 1.4.328 is installed
• vulkaninfo runs successfully
• Mesa driver shows warning: "MESA-INTEL: warning: Ivy Bridge Vulkan support is incomplete"
• Zed editor launches successfully despite the warning

Understanding the Warning

The "Ivy Bridge Vulkan support is incomplete" warning is expected behavior for your hardware:

1. Why it appears: Intel HD Graphics 4000 is a 3rd-generation (Ivy Bridge) GPU from 2012, before Vulkan was standardized
2. What it means: Mesa provides best-effort Vulkan support through a compatibility layer, but not all Vulkan features are hardware-accelerated
3. Is it a problem?: Generally no - applications will either:
   • Use the incomplete Vulkan support (works for most tasks)
   • Fall back to OpenGL automatically
   • Use the software renderer (llvmpipe) as a last resort

Verification Approach

Step 1: Verify Vulkan Device Detection ✅

Diagnostic results confirm:

• ✅ Vulkan loader is installed (vulkaninfo successful)
• ✅ GPU is detected (Intel HD Graphics 4000 IVB GT2)
• ✅ Both hardware and software renderers available:
  • Hardware: Intel HD Graphics 4000 (using intel_icd.x86_64.json)
  • Software fallback: llvmpipe (LLVM 21.1.5, 256 bits)
• ✅ Vulkan ICD files present:
  • intel_icd.x86_64.json (for Ivy Bridge/Broadwell)
  • intel_hasvk_icd.x86_64.json (for Haswell+)
  • lvp_icd.x86_64.json (lavapipe software renderer)
  • nouveau_icd.x86_64.json (Nouveau open-source driver)
  • nvidia_icd.json (NVIDIA proprietary driver)

Step 2: Test Vulkan Functionality

Run simple Vulkan test applications to verify:

• Basic rendering works
• Applications can create Vulkan instances and devices
• The warning doesn't prevent normal operation

Commands to run:

# Verify Vulkan ICD (Installable Client Driver) files
ls -la /usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/

# Check which Vulkan layers are available
vulkaninfo --summary | grep -A 5 "Layer"

# Test with a simple Vulkan application (if vkcube is installed)
vkcube || echo "vkcube not installed, will try alternative"

# Check if Zed can actually use Vulkan
VK_ICD_FILENAMES=/usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/intel_icd.x86_64.json /usr/lib/zed/zed-editor --version

Step 3: Verify Mesa Driver Status

Confirm Mesa drivers are up to date:

# Check Mesa version
glxinfo | grep "OpenGL version"

# Verify Intel driver is loaded
lsmod | grep i915

# Check Vulkan driver info
vulkaninfo | grep -A 10 "GPU id.*Intel"

Step 4: Document Findings

Create a summary report showing:

1. Vulkan is installed: ✅ (version 1.4.328)
2. GPU is detected: ✅ (Intel HD Graphics 4000 + llvmpipe fallback)
3. Warning is expected: ✅ (Ivy Bridge has incomplete Vulkan support by design)
4. Applications work: ✅/❌ (to be verified)

Expected Outcome

Vulkan is correctly installed if:

• vulkaninfo runs without errors (✅ confirmed)
• At least one Vulkan device is available (✅ Intel HD 4000 + llvmpipe)
• Applications launch and run (✅ Zed editor works)

The warning is harmless because:

• It's informational, not an error
• Applications handle this gracefully by:
  • Using available Vulkan features
  • Falling back to OpenGL/software rendering
  • Automatically selecting the best available renderer

Recommendations

1. No action needed - Vulkan is working as well as it can on Ivy Bridge hardware
2. Optional: Set environment variable to suppress the warning if it's annoying:

   export INTEL_DEBUG=nowarn
   

3. Optional: For better graphics performance, consider using OpenGL mode in applications when available (Ivy Bridge's OpenGL support is more mature than Vulkan)

Files to Review

None - this is a system-level verification task, not a code modification.