niri: mesa error

[mgdbbrt]

Describe the bug

I use niri on Ubuntu (24.04) via nixpkgs (bffc22e) with nixGL (310f8e49) , but now the screen goes blank when executing niri from the TTY and I get the following error: MESA-LOADER: failed to open dri: /run/opengl-driver/lib/gbm/dri_gbm.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory (search paths /run/opengl-driver/lib/gbm, suffix _gbm)

Steps to reproduce

Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Execute niri from a TTY.

Additional context

The error does not occur with nixpkgs d3c42f1.

Metadata

• system: "x86_64-linux"
• host os: Linux 6.8.0-51-generic, Ubuntu, 24.04.1 LTS (Noble Numbat), nobuild
• multi-user?: yes
• sandbox: yes
• version: nix-env (Nix) 2.24.11
• nixpkgs: /nix/store/6zgbbqlr7nnfxpzkyj7fsl4fpg89jbw0-source

Notify maintainers

@IogaMaster
@foo-dogsquared
@sodiboo
@getchoo

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[IogaMaster]

When you run niri inside a already running window manager. Forcing the winit backend does it start?

[mgdbbrt]

When you run niri inside a already running window manager. Forcing the winit backend does it start?

Yes, this works.

[IogaMaster]

Okay, I think the backend for niri as the host window manager is libseat/seatd.
Perhaps the mesa version is causing this.
@sodiboo I am not currently running niri or have it configured. Could you take a look at updating the mesa version for niri? If possible

[sodiboo]

eeh? i don't know if there's anything we can do on niri. i'm pretty sure it's not our fault and our package isn't broken; this is just the kinds of mesa shenanigans that are unfortunately common on nix, especially outside of its natural habitat (nixos)

that's not to say it's like, not a real issue or anything. but i'm pretty sure we can't do anything to the package to magically fix it.

[getchoo]

If Mesa is the problem, the solution here would probably be to pin the version of it used by the Niri package to the one from Ubuntu 24.04

Assuming that would be the version of Mesa in the working commit d3c42f1, something like the following may work in a home-manager configuration:

{ pkgs, ... }:

let
  mesa-nixpkgs =
    import
      (fetchTarball "https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/archive/d3c42f187194c26d9f0309a8ecc469d6c878ce33.tar.gz")
      {
        inherit (pkgs.stdenv.hostPlatform) system;
        config = { };
        overlays = [ ];
      };
in

{
  home.packages = [
    (pkgs.niri.override { inherit (mesa-nixpkgs) libgbm; })
  ];
}

[mgdbbrt]

If Mesa is the problem, the solution here would probably be to pin the version of it used by the Niri package to the one from Ubuntu 24.04

Assuming that would be the version of Mesa in the working commit d3c42f1, something like the following may work in a home-manager configuration:

{ pkgs, ... }:

let
  mesa-nixpkgs =
    import
      (fetchTarball "https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/archive/d3c42f187194c26d9f0309a8ecc469d6c878ce33.tar.gz")
      {
        inherit (pkgs.stdenv.hostPlatform) system;
        config = { };
        overlays = [ ];
      };
in

{
  home.packages = [
    (pkgs.niri.override { inherit (mesa-nixpkgs) libgbm; })
  ];
}

This does not work because libgbm was not a direct dependency of niri prior to d209d80.

[mgdbbrt]

If I use the niri package from nixos-24.11 (build against mesa-24.2.8) I get a Segmentation fault (core dump) when running with nixGL. Maybe because nixGL injects mesa-24.3.3?

[mgdbbrt]

I got this to work by using both niri and nixGL with a version of nixpkgs that has mesa ~24.2.

[getchoo]

This does not work because libgbm was not a direct dependency of niri prior to d209d80.

If you're on stable you can use pkgs.niri.override { inherit (mesa-nixpkgs) mesa; } instead

[lierdakil]

Things work if dri_gbm.so is, in fact, in /run/opengl-drivers/... -- so the issue here is something hard-codes the path into libgbm -- I checked, and strings does find a hard-coded /run/opengl-drivers/... string in libgbm.so.

Edit: nevermind, seems like setting GBM_BACKENDS_PATH is the actual answer here. Which nixGL unfortunately doesn't.

[Vaisakhkm2625]

today i got the same error in nixos running from TTY, while from source... (offical stable package is working fine...)
screen just going blankt

and setting GBM_BACKENDS_PATH didn't helped ether...

nix build   
GBM_BACKENDS_PATH="$(nix build --no-link --print-out-paths nixpk
gs\#mesa.drivers)/lib/gbm"
./result/bin/niri

2025-06-17T22:13:04.393551Z  INFO niri: starting version 25.05.1 (v25.05.1-29-gf3f6e79e-modified)
2025-06-17T22:13:04.455274Z DEBUG niri_config: loaded config from "/home/vaisakh/.config/niri/config.kdl"
2025-06-17T22:13:04.526254Z DEBUG niri::backend::tty: attempting to use render node from config: "/dev/dri/card1"
2025-06-17T22:13:04.526742Z  WARN niri::backend::tty: DRM node "/dev/dri/card1" is not a render node
2025-06-17T22:13:04.526829Z  INFO niri::backend::tty: using as the render node: "/dev/dri/renderD128"
2025-06-17T22:13:04.605686Z DEBUG niri::backend::tty: device added: 57857 "/dev/dri/card1"
MESA-LOADER: failed to open dri: /run/opengl-driver/lib/gbm/dri_gbm.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory (search paths /run/opengl-driver/lib/gbm, suffix _gbm)
2025-06-17T22:13:04.896671Z  WARN niri::backend::tty: error adding device: No such file or directory (os error 2)
2025-06-17T22:13:04.896758Z  INFO niri: listening on Wayland socket: wayland-1
2025-06-17T22:13:04.896769Z  INFO niri: IPC listening on: /run/user/1000/niri.wayland-1.2080.sock
2025-06-17T22:13:04.898632Z  INFO niri::utils::xwayland::satellite: error spawning xwayland-satellite at "xwayland-satellite", disabling integration: No such file or directory (os error 2)
2025-06-17T22:13:17.625228Z DEBUG niri::backend::tty: pausing session
2025-06-17T22:17:25.163354Z DEBUG niri::backend::tty: resuming session
2025-06-17T22:17:25.236160Z DEBUG niri::backend::tty: device added: 57857 "/dev/dri/card1"
2025-06-17T22:17:25.236747Z  WARN niri::backend::tty: error adding device: Failed to open device: Resource temporarily unavailable (os error 11)
libinput error: event10 - MSFT0001:01 04F3:31BE Touchpad: kernel bug: Touch jump detected and discarded.
See https://wayland.freedesktop.org/libinput/doc/1.27.1/touchpad-jumping-cursors.html for details
2025-06-17T22:17:38.256211Z DEBUG niri::backend::tty: pausing session
2025-06-17T22:18:16.421012Z DEBUG niri::backend::tty: resuming session
2025-06-17T22:18:16.493006Z DEBUG niri::backend::tty: device added: 57857 "/dev/dri/card1"
MESA-LOADER: failed to open dri: /run/opengl-driver/lib/gbm/dri_gbm.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory (search paths /run/opengl-driver/lib/gbm, suffix _gbm)
2025-06-17T22:18:16.514597Z  WARN niri::backend::tty: error adding device: No such file or directory (os error 2)
2025-06-17T22:18:22.637253Z DEBUG niri::backend::tty: pausing session