# GLMakie displays false colours in WSL2

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/glmakie-displays-false-colours-in-wsl2/129590>\
**Category:** Visualization\
**Tags:** wsl2, glmakie\
**Created:** [June 3, 2025, 8:51am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/glmakie-displays-false-colours-in-wsl2/129590 "2025-06-03T08:51:05Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 13\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![aris](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/258eb7/32.png) [@aris](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/aris)\
**Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 8:51am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/glmakie-displays-false-colours-in-wsl2/129590/1 "2025-06-03T08:51:05Z")

</div>

Hello everyone,

In WSL2 ubuntu, GLMakie gives me weird colours for some reason.  
For example,

```julia
using GLMakie 
lines(rand(10))

```

results in:

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/original/3X/1/1/112258561c74193324db99058d3db5dde2307a68.png)

If I save the plot, the colours in the .png image are fine, its just the display window that’s acting funny.

The following info might help:

```julia
cmd> wsl --version
WSL version: 2.5.7.0
Kernel version: 6.6.87.1-1
WSLg version: 1.0.66
MSRDC version: 1.2.6074
Direct3D version: 1.611.1-81528511
DXCore version: 10.0.26100.1-240331-1435.ge-release
Windows version: 10.0.19045.5854

```

```julia
$ glxinfo | grep "OpenGL"

OpenGL vendor string: Mesa
OpenGL renderer string: llvmpipe (LLVM 19.1.1, 256 bits)
OpenGL core profile version string: 4.5 (Core Profile) Mesa 24.2.8-1ubuntu1~24.04.1
OpenGL core profile shading language version string: 4.50
OpenGL core profile context flags: (none)
OpenGL core profile profile mask: core profile
OpenGL core profile extensions:
OpenGL version string: 4.5 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 24.2.8-1ubuntu1~24.04.1
OpenGL shading language version string: 4.50
OpenGL context flags: (none)
OpenGL profile mask: compatibility profile
OpenGL extensions:
OpenGL ES profile version string: OpenGL ES 3.2 Mesa 24.2.8-1ubuntu1~24.04.1
OpenGL ES profile shading language version string: OpenGL ES GLSL ES 3.20
OpenGL ES profile extensions:

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![sdanisch](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/sdanisch/32/1406_2.png) [@sdanisch](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/sdanisch)\
**Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 10:26am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/glmakie-displays-false-colours-in-wsl2/129590/2 "2025-06-03T10:26:35Z")

</div>

This is a know issue with Mesa falling back to software rasterization via llvmpipe:

> <https://github.com/MakieOrg/Makie.jl/issues/3699#issuecomment-2934561738>
>
> \- \[x\] are you running newest version (version from docs) ?
> 
> \`\`\`julia
> (jl\_DbBe…xd) pkg\> st
> Status \`/tmp/jl\_DbBexd/Project.toml\`
> \[e9467ef8\] GLMakie v0.9.9
> \[ee78f7c6\] Makie v0.20.8
> \`\`\`
> \- \[x\] can you reproduce the bug with a fresh environment ? (\`\]activate --temp; add Makie\`)
> 
> See \`st\` above.
> 
> \- \[x\] What platform + GPU are you on?
> 
> Platform:
> \`\`\`julia
> julia\> versioninfo()
> Julia Version 1.10.2
> Commit bd47eca2c8a (2024-03-01 10:14 UTC)
> Build Info:
> Official https://julialang.org/ release
> Platform Info:
> OS: Linux (x86\_64-linux-gnu)
> CPU: 8 × Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8550U CPU @ 1.80GHz
> WORD\_SIZE: 64
> LIBM: libopenlibm
> LLVM: libLLVM-15.0.7 (ORCJIT, skylake)
> Threads: 1 default, 0 interactive, 1 GC (on 8 virtual cores)
> \`\`\`
> GPU:
> \`\`\`
> yakir@luna:~$ lspci | grep VGA
> 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation UHD Graphics 620 (rev 07)
> \`\`\`
> 
> \## Report
> I get weird artifacts:
> 
> !\[Screenshot from 2024-03-13 14-34-30\](https://github.com/MakieOrg/Makie.jl/assets/3281957/bb87d8d4-d4b7-4d70-a332-4b5181f4ef32)
> 
> MWE:
> \`\`\`julia
> julia\> using GLMakie
> 
> julia\> poly(\[Point(0,0), Point(1,0), Point(0.5, 1)\])
> libGL error: did not find extension DRI\_Mesa version 1
> libGL error: failed to load driver: i965
> \`\`\`

The issue contains some pointers on how to get hardware acceleration going on WSL.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![aris](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/258eb7/32.png) [@aris](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/aris)\
**Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 12:05pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/glmakie-displays-false-colours-in-wsl2/129590/3 "2025-06-03T12:05:57Z")

</div>

Thanks for the reply Simon.

I tried following the advice in the link you provided but it doesnt seem to work.

```julia
glxinfo | grep renderer

    GLX_MESA_copy_sub_buffer, GLX_MESA_gl_interop, GLX_MESA_query_renderer,
    GLX_MESA_copy_sub_buffer, GLX_MESA_query_renderer, GLX_SGIS_multisample,
Extended renderer info (GLX_MESA_query_renderer):
OpenGL renderer string: llvmpipe (LLVM 19.1.1, 256 bits)

```

Could it perhaps be because I am running it on Intel integrated graphics instead of an actual gpu?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![hz-xiaxz](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/hz-xiaxz/32/209585_2.png) [@hz-xiaxz](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/hz-xiaxz)\
**Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 12:36pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/glmakie-displays-false-colours-in-wsl2/129590/4 "2025-06-03T12:36:17Z")

</div>

got this, too. I’m also using an Intel integrated graphics:

```bash
(base) ➜ dev glxinfo | grep renderer
    GLX_MESA_copy_sub_buffer, GLX_MESA_query_renderer, GLX_MESA_swap_control, 
    GLX_MESA_copy_sub_buffer, GLX_MESA_query_renderer, GLX_OML_swap_method, 
Extended renderer info (GLX_MESA_query_renderer):
OpenGL renderer string: llvmpipe (LLVM 15.0.7, 256 bits)

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![sdanisch](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/sdanisch/32/1406_2.png) [@sdanisch](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/sdanisch)\
**Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 1:11pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/glmakie-displays-false-colours-in-wsl2/129590/5 "2025-06-03T13:11:42Z")

</div>

> [@aris](#):
>
> integrated graphics instead of an actual gpu?

Integrated gpus are actual GPUs 😉  
From my experience intel has the worst drivers of all vendors…  
You’ll need to google/chat to see if there’s a solution.

It can always be a little bit of an adventure to get GPU hardware acceleration fully working on linux/wsl.  
I recently had success with OpenSuse tumbleweed for WSL, which seems to have fixes earlier, but not sure if i was just lucky 😉

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![aris](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/258eb7/32.png) [@aris](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/aris)\
**Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 1:18pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/glmakie-displays-false-colours-in-wsl2/129590/6 "2025-06-03T13:18:44Z")

</div>

Got it, I’ll have a go at it once I find some time.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![hz-xiaxz](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/hz-xiaxz/32/209585_2.png) [@hz-xiaxz](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/hz-xiaxz)\
**Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 1:45pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/glmakie-displays-false-colours-in-wsl2/129590/7 "2025-06-03T13:45:03Z")

</div>

~~After some rounds with Gemini, there might be incompatiblity of my current GPU from Ubuntu system, which needs a lot of work to figure out I think..~~

EDITED: irrelevant. See the systemd issue below.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![hz-xiaxz](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/hz-xiaxz/32/209585_2.png) [@hz-xiaxz](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/hz-xiaxz)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2025, 7:25am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/glmakie-displays-false-colours-in-wsl2/129590/8 "2025-06-15T07:25:15Z")

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I think there’s an issue that WSL doesn’t default to use systemd, after adding this line into my `/etc/wsl.conf`

```bash
[boot]
systemd = true

```

and restart WSL.

The `glxinfo | grep renderer`

gives a non-llvmpipe result

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![hz-xiaxz](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/hz-xiaxz/32/209585_2.png) [@hz-xiaxz](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/hz-xiaxz)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2025, 7:28am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/glmakie-displays-false-colours-in-wsl2/129590/9 "2025-06-15T07:28:47Z")

</div>

currently got a segfault adding `GLMakie`, not sure if there’s a compatible problem that [CompatHelper: bump compat for Makie to 0.23 for package GLMakie, (keep existing compat) by github-actions[bot] · Pull Request #5060 · MakieOrg/Makie.jl · GitHub](https://github.com/MakieOrg/Makie.jl/pull/5060) wasn’t merged. Will try out later.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![aris](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/258eb7/32.png) [@aris](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/aris)\
**Post date:** [June 16, 2025, 10:04am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/glmakie-displays-false-colours-in-wsl2/129590/10 "2025-06-16T10:04:57Z")

</div>

> [@hz-xiaxz](#):
>
> ```julia
> [boot]
> systemd = true
> 
> ```

WSL ubuntu defaults to that.  
Which distro are you using?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![hz-xiaxz](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/hz-xiaxz/32/209585_2.png) [@hz-xiaxz](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/hz-xiaxz)\
**Post date:** [June 17, 2025, 5:18am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/glmakie-displays-false-colours-in-wsl2/129590/11 "2025-06-17T05:18:22Z")

</div>

Don’t know why this issue came to me. I’m using Win11 + WSL2 + Ubuntu 22.04.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![aris](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/258eb7/32.png) [@aris](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/aris)\
**Post date:** [June 17, 2025, 8:14am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/glmakie-displays-false-colours-in-wsl2/129590/12 "2025-06-17T08:14:30Z")

</div>

Interesting, maybe its different for me since I’m on some corporate version of windows 10.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![hz-xiaxz](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/hz-xiaxz/32/209585_2.png) [@hz-xiaxz](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/hz-xiaxz)\
**Post date:** [June 17, 2025, 2:19pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/glmakie-displays-false-colours-in-wsl2/129590/13 "2025-06-17T14:19:04Z")

</div>

My windows driver model version is WDDM 2.7, which shall be lower than the WSLg required version (told by Gemini). A little bit surprised that WSLg don’t even support hardware from 2021?  
If so, the problem is done from my side.