bug: alacritty no longer working on non-NixOS system

[n8henrie]

Are you following the right branch?

• My Nixpkgs and Home Manager versions are in sync

Is there an existing issue for this?

• I have searched the existing issues

Issue description

Just updated to release-23.11 on an Arch Linux machine that has been running hm-installed alacritty with no issues.

Trying to run alacritty now shows:

$ alacritty
Error: failed to find suitable GL configuration.
Error: "Event loop terminated with code: 1"

Likely related:

• bug: openGL terminals not running on Pop!_OS #2251
• libGL not working on non-NixOS (without setting up) NixOS/nixpkgs#9415
• Kitty does not start more NixOS/nixpkgs#80936
• alacritty: failed to find suitable GL configuration when using nix on linux mint NixOS/nixpkgs#230660

Maintainer CC

based on blame: @elkowar @ncfavier @hyperfekt

System information

- system: `"x86_64-linux"`
 - host os: `Linux 6.1.64-1-lts, Arch Linux, noversion, rolling`
 - multi-user?: `yes`
 - sandbox: `yes`
 - version: `nix-env (Nix) 2.19.1`
 - channels(root): `""`
 - channels(n8henrie): `"nixpkgs-22.11"`
 - nixpkgs: `/home/n8henrie/.nix-defexpr/channels/nixpkgs`

[n8henrie]

Looking into it further (in particular NixOS/nixpkgs#230660) it looks like this is a complicated longstanding issue. Perhaps it was just by luck that it was previously working before the update?

[n8henrie]

No luck following instructions from https://nixos.org/manual/nixpkgs/unstable/#nix-on-gnulinux#4673

$ nix shell nixpkgs#alacritty nixpkgs#libglvnd nixpkgs#mesa.drivers
$ LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$(nix eval --raw nixpkgs#libglvnd)/lib:$(nix eval --raw nixpkgs#mesa.drivers)/lib alacritty
Error: failed to find suitable GL configuration.
Error: "Event loop terminated with code: 1"

Running with nixGL works:

$ NIXPKGS_ALLOW_UNFREE=1
    nix run \
        --override-input nixpkgs nixpkgs/nixos-23.11 \
        --impure github:guibou/nixGL -- \
        nix run nixpkgs#alacritty

Closing as this isn't really an HM issue.

[mikefaille]

I have the same problem with kitty !

[cognivore]

Same

[DawnMagnet]

same

[0xTheFr34k]

No luck following instructions from https://nixos.org/manual/nixpkgs/unstable/#nix-on-gnulinux#4673

$ nix shell nixpkgs#alacritty nixpkgs#libglvnd nixpkgs#mesa.drivers
$ LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$(nix eval --raw nixpkgs#libglvnd)/lib:$(nix eval --raw nixpkgs#mesa.drivers)/lib alacritty
Error: failed to find suitable GL configuration.
Error: "Event loop terminated with code: 1"
Running with nixGL works:

$ NIXPKGS_ALLOW_UNFREE=1
nix run
--override-input nixpkgs nixpkgs/nixos-23.11
--impure github:guibou/nixGL --
nix run nixpkgs#alacritty
Closing as this isn't really an HM issue.

Thanks to this man for the idea what i did is just create a wrapper :

# filepath =  alacritty/default.nix
{ pkgs }:

pkgs.stdenv.mkDerivation {
  name = "alacritty-wrapped";
  dontUnpack = true;

  buildInputs = with pkgs; [ alacritty libglvnd mesa.drivers ];

  installPhase = ''
    mkdir -p $out/bin
    makeWrapper ${pkgs.alacritty}/bin/alacritty $out/bin/alacritty \
      --set LD_LIBRARY_PATH "${pkgs.libglvnd}/lib:${pkgs.mesa.drivers}/lib"
  '';

  nativeBuildInputs = [ pkgs.makeWrapper ];
}

and add this to home.nix

  home.packages = with pkgs; [
    tmux
    btop
    fzf
    lunarvim
    moreutils
    pwndbg
    git
    lazygit
    nerd-fonts.jetbrains-mono
    xsel
    cargo
    (pkgs.callPackage ./alacritty { })
  ];