mesa-git-extension VS mainline

That would replace the default Mesa with your build. I recently added these instructions to the mesa-git repository: https://gitlab.com/freedesktop-sdk/mesa-git-extension. What I personally do, instead of replacing the default mesa extension, I build mesa-git using the version of mesa I want to test, and then I start the apps with mesa-git. That way I have both the default Mesa extension and my own build, and can use whichever I want in any specific situation.

I added build instructions to the mesa-git repository recently: https://gitlab.com/freedesktop-sdk/mesa-git-extension

Make sure you have a clean working tree. A note on that, upstream still haven't accepted my MR on the branch release/21.08, so there isn't a .gitignore file on this branch like the one I created on the other branches. It's better to copy this file from master and paste it back after checking out the 21.08 branch, this will make it easier to check if the working tree is clean. This won't be necessary after this MR gets merged.

22.1 > 22.2 shouldn’t be a major upgrade? Wouldn’t that be 22.x > 23.x? Also there’s a mesa-git flatpak you can use. https://gitlab.com/freedesktop-sdk/mesa-git-extension

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but that's in question too: https://gitlab.com/freedesktop-sdk/mesa-git-extension/-/issues/9

just to save everyone some time, I was never able to get this to work with Elden Ring, and it seems to be a known issue.

See also https://github.com/bkw777/mainline which offers a UI to install the mainline kernels from mainline kernels PPA.

You are referring to this, right? https://github.com/bkw777/mainline

use the Mainline Tool to install the latest kernel: https://github.com/bkw777/mainline

on Ubuntu or derivates of it like Linux Mint just use https://github.com/bkw777/mainline which pulls newer updates automatically

Lastly, of you want to play with kernels, install mainline.....https://github.com/bkw777/mainline

On Mint 21? I don't think so. The only possible way would be to install Mint 20.3 which comes with the older Cinnamon before the Mutter rebase. You could then install a newer kernel like 6.3 using Mainline, but you would be stuck with an Ubuntu 20.04 base which means much older apps in the repositories.

Out of the box Ubuntu and derivatives (and also Debian upstream of Ubuntu) are probably shipping with older kernels. Normally I'd just suggest installing the GUI kernel version management tool mainline (IIRC mainline should just be available in the Ubuntu software center) and just installing a more recent kernel to get support. Though you indicated you didn't want to touch the command line, it is also very possible to load drivers that are not shipped with the kernel if someone were willing to do so.