This is libdrm, a userspace library for accessing the DRM, direct rendering manager, on Linux, BSD and other operating systems that support the ioctl interface. The library provides wrapper functions for the ioctls to avoid exposing the kernel interface directly, and for chipsets with drm memory manager, support for tracking relocations and buffers. New functionality in the kernel DRM drivers typically requires a new libdrm, but a new libdrm will always work with an older kernel.
libdrm is a low-level library, typically used by graphics drivers such as the Mesa drivers, the X drivers, libva and similar projects.
libdrm has two build systems, a legacy autotools build system, and a newer meson build system. The meson build system is much faster, and offers a slightly different interface, but otherwise provides an equivalent feature set.
To use it:
meson builddir/
By default this will install into /usr/local, you can change your prefix with --prefix=/usr (or meson configure builddir/ -Dprefix=/usr after the initial meson setup).
Then use ninja to build and install:
ninja -C builddir/ install
If you are installing into a system location you will need to run install separately, and as root.
Alternatively you can invoke autotools configure:
./configure
By default, libdrm will install into the /usr/local/ prefix. If you want to install this DRM to replace your system copy, pass --prefix=/usr and --exec-prefix=/ to configure. If you are building libdrm from a git checkout, you first need to run the autogen.sh script. You can pass any options to autogen.sh that you would other wise pass to configure, or you can just re-run configure with the options you need once autogen.sh finishes.
Next step is to build libdrm:
make
and once make finishes successfully, install the package using
make install
If you are installing into a system location, you will need to be root to perform the install step.