# GLMakie on vscode remote backend

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/glmakie-on-vscode-remote-backend/135195>\
**Category:** General Usage\
**Created:** [January 21, 2026, 10:05pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/glmakie-on-vscode-remote-backend/135195 "2026-01-21T22:05:31Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![freeman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ec9cab/32.png) [@freeman](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/freeman)\
**Post date:** [January 21, 2026, 10:05pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/glmakie-on-vscode-remote-backend/135195/1 "2026-01-21T22:05:31Z")

</div>

Does anybody know if it’s possible to use GLMakie with vscode remote backend? CairoMaike works.

When I try, I get this:

```julia-auto
Failed to precompile GLMakie [e9467ef8-e4e7-5192-8a1a-b1aee30e663a] to "/home/user/.julia/compiled/v1.12/GLMakie/jl_6wz446".
┌ Warning: OpenGL/GLFW wasn't loaded correctly or couldn't be initialized.
│ This likely means, you're on a headless server without having OpenGL support setup correctly.
│ Have a look at the troubleshooting section in the readme:
│ https://github.com/MakieOrg/Makie.jl/tree/master/GLMakie#troubleshooting-opengl.
└ @ GLMakie ~/.julia/packages/GLMakie/vdrwE/src/gl_backend.jl:4
ERROR: LoadError: InitError: Exception[GLFW.GLFWError(65550, "X11: The DISPLAY environment variable is missing"), ErrorException("glfwInit failed")]

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![asinghvi17](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/asinghvi17/32/8272_2.png) [@asinghvi17](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/asinghvi17)\
**Post date:** [January 22, 2026, 12:53am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/glmakie-on-vscode-remote-backend/135195/2 "2026-01-22T00:53:05Z")

</div>

If you want to do rendering on the remote machine, you’d need this setup for software rendering:

> <https://github.com/MakieOrg/Makie.jl/blob/d8bebb874ce1ae32299c2f001e62df1bc70da021/.github/workflows/reference_tests.yml#L92>

But if you want to do rendering on your local machine then I think you _might_ be able to do some kind of X forwarding? Not sure if that can be done through VSCode. WGLMakie is also an option there.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![freeman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ec9cab/32.png) [@freeman](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/freeman)\
**Post date:** [January 22, 2026, 1:39am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/glmakie-on-vscode-remote-backend/135195/3 "2026-01-22T01:39:21Z")

</div>

So right now when I try to install GLMakie on remote via vscode on local, I get that error I copy pasted. Are you saying that if I install those things on remove, this install should succeed?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ufechner7](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/ufechner7/32/51363_2.png) [@ufechner7](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ufechner7)\
**Post date:** [January 22, 2026, 3:48am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/glmakie-on-vscode-remote-backend/135195/4 "2026-01-22T03:48:27Z")

</div>

If you install:

```julia-auto
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y xorg-dev mesa-utils xvfb libgl1 freeglut3-dev libxrandr-dev libxinerama-dev libxcursor-dev libxi-dev libxext-dev xsettingsd x11-xserver-utils

```

and start Julia with:

```julia-auto
DISPLAY=:0 xvfb-run -s '-screen 0 1024x768x24' julia --project

```

installation will succeed. But that is only half of the story, you also want to see the plots. You could try X11 forwarding. Not sure how to do that.

---

<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:** [January 22, 2026, 4:05pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/glmakie-on-vscode-remote-backend/135195/5 "2026-01-22T16:05:32Z")

</div>

You could also try using WGLMakie, which should work in the plotpane.  
Best forward 9384, then you shouldn’t need to do anything else.