How do extensions install in openGL?

Question

I cannot find some information for this issue. Particularly, I want to install GL_ARB_ES2_compatibility extension. How can I do it ( in Linux)?

Answer 1

Sounds like you have some misconception about what extensions are.

Extensions are not plugins. In other words, extensions are not something you can install alongside an existing OpenGL implementation to gain new functionality.

Extensions are functionality that a OpenGL implementation exposes in addition to the standard OpenGL functions of the OpenGL version the implementation supports. For example a OpenGL implementation may support all of OpenGL-2.1 but also parts of OpenGL-3.0 (but not everything from OpenGL-3.0). So the driver can not claim that it supports OpenGL-3.0, but it may advertise the supported subset as extension.

If you need a certain extension you must install a OpenGL implementation (= GPU + matching driver) that supports that extension.

Answer 2

As ratchet freak said, it depends if it's already implemented in driver (and if your hardware support it)

You could rebuild the drivers (part of the Mesa project) yourself from the latest source to get the latest extensions available, or depending on you distrib, you could fetch experimental or testing package using pinning (for debian based distrib)

Answer 3

You could also obtain hardware implementing the opengl extension you need.

Here is a database of opengl extensions with detailed hardware implementations.

For example here is the report of which hardware support the GL_ARB_ES2_compatibility extension.