Unable to launch the zed GUI interface under Ubuntu 24.04 WSL

[linghengqian]

Reproduction steps

1. Perform the following operations on a newly installed Ubuntu 24.04 WSL instance:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade --assume-yes
curl -f https://zed.dev/install.sh | sh
echo 'export PATH=$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc
~/.local/bin/zed

Current vs. Expected behavior

• Unable to launch the zed GUI interface under Ubuntu 24.04 WSL.
• 

Zed version and system specs

• Actually, I can't open zed.

Attach Zed log file

• Actually, I can't open zed.

Relevant Zed settings

• Actually, I can't open zed.

Relevant Keymap

• Actually, I can't open zed.

(for AI issues) Model provider details

No response

If you are using WSL on Windows, what flavor of Linux are you using?

Ubuntu

[lingyaochu]

Check this #38116. Zed currently do not support running as a Linux application from inside WSL using WSLg.

[bnjmnjrk]

same issue on archlinux and ubuntu (no wsl)

$ ./zed --foreground
2026-01-19T11:00:52+01:00 INFO  [zed] ========== starting zed version 0.218.7+stable.118.41bab92dac34777ae4256e5041f7b7236fd16cdd, sha 41bab92 ==========
2026-01-19T11:00:52+01:00 INFO  [crashes] spawning crash handler process
2026-01-19T11:00:52+01:00 INFO  [extension_host] extensions updated. loading 22, reloading 0, unloading 0
2026-01-19T11:00:52+01:00 INFO  [gpui::platform::linux::platform] activate is not implemented on Linux, ignoring the call
2026-01-19T11:00:52+01:00 INFO  [crashes] connected to crash handler process after 100ms
2026-01-19T11:00:52+01:00 INFO  [crashes] crash handler registered

another shell:

$ ps -ef | grep zed
user       41878   41314  0 11:00 pts/0    00:00:00 ./zed --foreground
user       41884   41878  8 11:00 pts/0    00:00:02 /home/user/zed.app/libexec/zed-editor zed-cli:///tmp/.tmphCU7G9/socket
user       41904   41884  0 11:00 pts/0    00:00:00 /home/user/zed.app/libexec/zed-editor --crash-handler /home/user/.cache/zed/zed-crash-handler-41884
user       42007   41994  0 11:01 pts/1    00:00:00 grep zed

no GUI open

[linghengqian]

Check this #38116. Zed currently do not support running as a Linux application from inside WSL using WSLg.

So, should I close this issue? But I haven't even seen any error logs explaining what happened.

[lingyaochu]

same issue on archlinux and ubuntu (no wsl)

$ ./zed --foreground
2026-01-19T11:00:52+01:00 INFO  [zed] ========== starting zed version 0.218.7+stable.118.41bab92dac34777ae4256e5041f7b7236fd16cdd, sha 41bab92 ==========
2026-01-19T11:00:52+01:00 INFO  [crashes] spawning crash handler process
2026-01-19T11:00:52+01:00 INFO  [extension_host] extensions updated. loading 22, reloading 0, unloading 0
2026-01-19T11:00:52+01:00 INFO  [gpui::platform::linux::platform] activate is not implemented on Linux, ignoring the call
2026-01-19T11:00:52+01:00 INFO  [crashes] connected to crash handler process after 100ms
2026-01-19T11:00:52+01:00 INFO  [crashes] crash handler registered

another shell:

$ ps -ef | grep zed
user       41878   41314  0 11:00 pts/0    00:00:00 ./zed --foreground
user       41884   41878  8 11:00 pts/0    00:00:02 /home/user/zed.app/libexec/zed-editor zed-cli:///tmp/.tmphCU7G9/socket
user       41904   41884  0 11:00 pts/0    00:00:00 /home/user/zed.app/libexec/zed-editor --crash-handler /home/user/.cache/zed/zed-crash-handler-41884
user       42007   41994  0 11:01 pts/1    00:00:00 grep zed

no GUI open

If this is observed on a local (native) Linux machine, I think this deserves a separate issue with a detailed description. This current issue should be closed, as the implementation details of Zed differ significantly between Windows/WSL and Linux (see this), and WSL does not represent a standard Linux environment.

[bnjmnjrk]

haven't even seen any error logs

Run Zed with the --foreground flag to view the logs.

[linghengqian]

This current issue should be closed

@lingyaochu

• Even if this issue needs to be closed, I'll say that I saw something that really surprised me at https://zed.dev/docs/linux#zed-fails-to-open-windows.

Zed requires a GPU to run effectively.

• As is well known, WSLg uses llvmpipe (LLVM 20.1.2, 256 bits) as the OpenGL Renderer by default, which is only the CPU. Therefore, I first set the environment variable GALLIUM_DRIVER to d3d12 to switch the OpenGL Renderer to D3D12 (AMD RadeonT 780M), so that WSLg can use the iGPU.

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade --assume-yes
curl -f https://zed.dev/install.sh | sh
echo 'export PATH=$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

sudo tee /etc/profile.d/myenvvars.sh <<EOF
export GALLIUM_DRIVER="d3d12"
EOF

• Then I executed wsl --terminate Ubuntu-24.04 in PowerShell 7 on Windows 11.
• Then I executed ~/.local/bin/zed --foreground in the login shell of Ubuntu 24.04 WSL, and the output is as follows:

lingh@DESKTOP-58BHAE6:~$ ~/.local/bin/zed --foreground
/home/lingh/.local/zed.app/libexec/zed-editor: error while loading shared libraries: libasound.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

• Therefore, I executed

sudo apt install --assume-yes libasound2t64
RUST_BACKTRACE=full ~/.local/bin/zed --foreground

• The error log at this time is as follows:

2026-01-19T19:46:43+08:00 INFO  [zed] ========== starting zed version 0.219.4+stable.119.5595f7ce23d51a58eb66dd025a487bbd6c75dad1, sha 5595f7c ==========

thread 'main' (791) panicked at crates/gpui/src/platform/linux/wayland/client.rs:160:51:
called `Result::unwrap()` on an `Err` value: UnsupportedVersion
stack backtrace:
   0:     0x59cf24ebb893 - <std::sys::backtrace::BacktraceLock::print::DisplayBacktrace as core::fmt::Display>::fmt::h718e2d17a1928e63
   1:     0x59cf1ba4aeff - core::fmt::write::h1d2246b072ea91eb
   2:     0x59cf24e76fc3 - std::io::Write::write_fmt::haf55272405c09d9b
   3:     0x59cf24e88372 - std::sys::backtrace::BacktraceLock::print::h61c3bd81a9458a03
   4:     0x59cf24e8eb4e - std::panicking::default_hook::{{closure}}::haf1ffb5d1e33a97f
   5:     0x59cf24e8e68f - std::panicking::default_hook::hc32245deb6eaa988
   6:     0x59cf24e8ef35 - std::panicking::panic_with_hook::h43adc00fd0e494cb
   7:     0x59cf24e8ed3a - std::panicking::panic_handler::{{closure}}::h44391079756da3e7
   8:     0x59cf24e884b9 - std::sys::backtrace::__rust_end_short_backtrace::h934e1568393e5b8f
   9:     0x59cf24e6a54d - __rustc[d9b87f19e823c0ef]::rust_begin_unwind
  10:     0x59cf1ba56b80 - core::panicking::panic_fmt::h62031895f6e012da
  11:     0x59cf1ba55a36 - core::result::unwrap_failed::h8e46864fd8bf13c6
  12:     0x59cf1f27a34f - gpui::platform::linux::wayland::client::Globals::new::h4e0e037d480cb531
  13:     0x59cf1f26ef73 - gpui::platform::linux::wayland::client::WaylandClient::new::he572e8aabb306b2a
  14:     0x59cf1f230066 - gpui::platform::current_platform::h819290ead3074e61
  15:     0x59cf1f1aa4d3 - gpui::app::Application::new::heb0a31ea44e44cba
  16:     0x59cf2772a243 - zed::main::hf18c3b0484484b5a
  17:     0x59cf2787a583 - std::sys::backtrace::__rust_begin_short_backtrace::h7ccdf81e1c8f6317
  18:     0x59cf27ac9459 - std::rt::lang_start::{{closure}}::h0128ef9af83b05bd
  19:     0x59cf24e78ec1 - std::rt::lang_start_internal::h00c7908c7c2f92b8
  20:     0x59cf27783dbc - main
  21:     0x7b95bd02a1ca - <unknown>
  22:     0x7b95bd02a28b - __libc_start_main
  23:     0x59cf182b762e - _start
  24:                0x0 - <unknown>

• This leads to my confusion about linghengqian@7cbf2ed in Fix WSLg compatibility by supporting xdg_wm_base version 1 linghengqian/zed#1 . Why does zed restrict the so-called xdg_wm_base to 2? And why doesn't curl -f https://zed.dev/install.sh | sh check if libasound.so.2 exists on the system? This seems unreasonable.

[lingyaochu]

You effort is appreciated, but I am sorry I'm not familiar with the very technical details of zed. All I know is that running Zed directly in WSL is currently not a supported feature.

Since this is a feature request rather than a bug report, I'd suggest converting this issue into a Discussion. That seems to be the better place for this kind of proposal.

[linghengqian]

Since this is a feature request rather than a bug report, I'd suggest converting this issue into a Discussion. That seems to be the better place for this kind of proposal.

Honestly, I'm not sure which category this issue falls under in the GitHub discussion. Maybe someone can help me move it to a discussion? From my perspective, this seems like a bug report. After all, in GitHub Actions, we could easily use the built-in WSL2 in Windows Server 2025 runner for testing. You can also check out microsoft/wslg#1349. I can't figure out why zed restricts it from running on operating systems where xdg_wm_base is 1; I couldn't find any related issues.

If I want to test the build, should I do it in the Ubuntu 24.04 runner within GitHub Actions?

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade --assume-yes
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/zed-industries/zed.git
cd ./zed/
./script/linux
./script/install-linux
~/.local/bin/zed --foreground