GLEW 2.3.0 fails on Wayland

OpusOne · 2026-01-12 01:10:36

Since the GLEW update to 2.3.0, applications that rely on GLEW for OpenGL fail to initialize on Wayland.

The call to glewInit() fails. It's new to version 2.3.0, worked fine before.

Applications that rely on GLEW fail to initialize or fail to be able to use OpenGL. That includes one of my own apps, but also the latest KiCad.

I've seen the following issue: https://github.com/nigels-com/glew/issues/451

This is a problem as right now, any app that depends on GLEW will fail on Wayland as it is. The author seems to imply that GLEW should be built specifically for Wayland in EGL mode, which fully bites.

Looking at the Arch glew package, I don't quite know what the "EGL hack" they mention is, but clearly there's a problem with the latest glew on Wayland: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/ … kages/glew

Fusion916 · 2026-01-12 06:09:12

Following this closely. I rely on alot of kicad usage and right now kicad is basically unusable because of this issue.

I tried rolling back kicad, python and wxwidgets, but other stuff broke. It looks like I will have to do a full system rollback to get kicad in a working state, or at least most of the python and python adjacent libraries. Not a great solution for now but I'm hoping someone is taking a look at this and it will get resolved shortly.

OpusOne · 2026-01-12 15:04:18

Yep this broke KiCad currently on Wayland.

For my own app that uses GLEW, it's not a huge deal as this is an opportunity to discard GLEW and switch to something more future-proof, such as Glad.

I haven't investigated the GLEW project more than what I posted above, but my impression so far is that it would require a specific build for Wayland. So that may mean for Arch to maintain two packages for GLEW, something like glew and glew-wayland. The recent history I posted for the glew package may suggest the maintainer tried to patch it to have a single package working on both Wayland and X11, but that it broke other stuff.

I have looked into the use of GLEW and it seems that many projects have deprecated it anyway, so maybe it would be a good idea to switch to something else for KiCad too.

Fusion916 · 2026-01-12 20:32:06

I reverted glew/kicad/python (all libraries) and various other things and Kicad is working perfectly again now. But this is obviously not a long term solution.

It also isnt clear to me what the solution is, or if the arch team is actually looking at this. Where can we file a issue/bug? I have not done that on any of the arch packages before.

OpusOne · 2026-01-12 21:07:09

Yes since they have updated the kicad package to depend on the new glew (2.3.0), then to revert back to glew 2.2, a bunch of other dependencies need to be downgraded.

I have never filed a bug for an Arch package either, but I see there is a link to create a new bug entry. Problem is, it requires an Arch gitlab account and they have blocked creating accounts (due to spam) so apparently we have to ask at accountsupport@archlinux.org

https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/glew/

frostzerg · 2026-01-13 01:23:35

I think it broke prusa-slicer too, program starts but doesn't show a print bed, downgraded prusa-slicer to 2.9.4-1 and glew to 2.2 and everything works again.

Update: I was incorrect, my issue is not related to glew.

Last edited by frostzerg (2026-01-13 15:53:18)

Lone_Wolf · 2026-01-13 11:47:05

https://www.kicad.org/blog/2025/06/KiCa … d-Support/

For clarity :
Do the affected applications work fine with glew 2.3.0 on X ?
Has someone tried if forcing the app to run on xwayland helps ?

OpusOne · 2026-01-13 16:13:53

There's a bunch of us who've been using KiCad on Wayland without any issues. I know they don't officially support it, but we are ok with that.
In this case, it wasn't strictly a KiCad on Wayland issue anyway, but a problem with a change in Glew that affects all apps depending on Glew.
I do run KiCad with "GDK_BACKEND=x11", which gives a behavior pretty much identical than on X11. Window positioning and cursor positioning works. But it doesn't appear to affect Glew either way.

For my own app, I did make the switch to Glad (which is relatively straightforward, just requires adding a couple files to the project and change a couple lines of code). But all other apps requiring Glew will be currently affected. I haven't followed the development of Glew, so not sure what happened exactly, but my thought is that in previous versions, it had some "hacks" to handle running on Wayland transparently and the author removed the hacks to make it cleaner. The keypoint is that we're not supposed to use GLX on Wayland as that's not supported, and the only option seems to be EGL. Not sure again why that used to work in Glew 2.2, but fact is, it doesn't anymore in 2.3, and the author probably had good reasons for this change, but it does break some existing stuff.

FYI, the maintainers of the kicad package have quickly solved the problem (for now) in kicad-9.0.7-5 (see: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/ … a7c4c3e4ee ). They removed the dependency to the "system" glew package and bundled a custom glew library with kicad. It now works fine again.

So, at this point, we can consider this "solved", although I'm not sure this can be a long-term solution.

Fusion916 · 2026-01-14 00:33:19

I can also confirm that repackaging Kicad to use the built in glew instead of the system glew works for me.

So with my system up today I am good now, but like you I wonder how long this can be maintained?

eddnix · 2026-01-15 09:30:15

I can confirm that glew is not working with VCVRack but the patched Kicad is now fully operational. I'm watching this thread now in the hope that a patched glew is released in short order. I am toying with installing https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/glew-wayland-git in the interim, although I would prefer a permanent fix in the official repositories.

arojas · 2026-01-15 13:07:49

All official repo packages should now be working, so don't expect any additional fixes in glew. If an AUR package requires an EGL build of glew then it should compile its own copy.

jstefanelli · 2026-01-17 12:53:26

So if I need to develop a Wayland OpenGL application I need to build my own GLEW now?

Scimmia · 2026-01-17 12:56:10

If you're developing something new, don't use GLEW.

jstefanelli · 2026-01-17 14:02:13

Is it deprecated or something?

OpusOne · 2026-01-17 20:18:17

jstefanelli wrote:

So if I need to develop a Wayland OpenGL application I need to build my own GLEW now?

Yes, but as I mentioned earlier, just switch to something else. I now use Glad instead: https://github.com/Dav1dde/glad/wiki/C

Arch Linux

#1 2026-01-12 01:10:36

GLEW 2.3.0 fails on Wayland

#2 2026-01-12 06:09:12

Re: GLEW 2.3.0 fails on Wayland

#3 2026-01-12 15:04:18

Re: GLEW 2.3.0 fails on Wayland

#4 2026-01-12 20:32:06

Re: GLEW 2.3.0 fails on Wayland

#5 2026-01-12 21:07:09

Re: GLEW 2.3.0 fails on Wayland

#6 2026-01-13 01:23:35

Re: GLEW 2.3.0 fails on Wayland

#7 2026-01-13 11:47:05

Re: GLEW 2.3.0 fails on Wayland

#8 2026-01-13 16:13:53

Re: GLEW 2.3.0 fails on Wayland

#9 2026-01-14 00:33:19

Re: GLEW 2.3.0 fails on Wayland

#10 2026-01-15 09:30:15

Re: GLEW 2.3.0 fails on Wayland

#11 2026-01-15 13:07:49

Re: GLEW 2.3.0 fails on Wayland

#12 2026-01-17 12:53:26

Re: GLEW 2.3.0 fails on Wayland

#13 2026-01-17 12:56:10

Re: GLEW 2.3.0 fails on Wayland

#14 2026-01-17 14:02:13

Re: GLEW 2.3.0 fails on Wayland

#15 2026-01-17 20:18:17

Re: GLEW 2.3.0 fails on Wayland

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