Linux guest: in GPU mode + Xwayland, X apps do not work and display a black rectangle

[mvysny]

Describe the issue
When running Ubuntu 24.10 arm64 guest in Wayland mode with 3d/gpu acceleration enabled, the X apps do not render correctly: they only render black rectangles and start display strange artifacts as windows are moved over them.

The easiest way to reproduce is to run xeyes, but a number of apps will cause the same behavior, e.g. vice (C64 emulator) when run from terminal via x64sc, the fs-uae Amiga emulator, all Java apps running in Xwayland mode.

Thank you so much for your excellent work on UTM, it's an amazing piece of software that enables me to continue using Linux on Mac 👍 🙏

Configuration

• UTM Version: 4.6.4
• macOS Version: 15.2
• Mac Chip (Intel, M1, ...): M3 Max
• Guest OS: Ubuntu 24.10 arm64 in Wayland mode
• Display card: virtio-gpu-gl-pci with GPU Acceleration enabled

Please see the screenshot attached; video will be uploaded shortly.

[mvysny]

Screen recording:

Screen.Recording.2025-01-15.at.9.47.50.mov

[mvysny]

After searching issues, I found that this could be a known issue: Xwayland never worked well with GPU accelerated displays as per #5749 (comment)

[flanter21]

After searching issues, I found that this could be a known issue: Xwayland never worked well with GPU accelerated displays as per #5749 (comment)

For me, it’s working on fedora. Maybe it’s this issue with mesa. I do note also that curiously it’s broken in flatpaks under kde for me but not in cosmic de. Maybe related: flathub/flathub#5938 (comment)

[mvysny]

You're right - in newest Ubuntu 24.10, xeyes seem to be working at first. But when I launch some other Xwayland app (perhaps some that requires 3d acceleration or such), xeyes stops working. This looks like a bug in Mesa rather than in UTM; let's observe this.