Known quirks
The rough edges worth recognising, so you can tell a quirk from something broken.
mslgd is a display server written from scratch, and a few things are still rough. None of these damage anything; they are worth recognising so you do not spend time chasing them.
Things you might meet#
| What you see | What it is |
|---|---|
| A Wayland-only app finds no display | mslgd is X11. Try GDK_BACKEND=x11 or QT_QPA_PLATFORM=xcb, or use an X11 build. |
| An app repaints only part of its window | Usually an OpenGL app on the GPU path. Try it on the CPU. |
| Menus in the window and in the menu bar | The app publishes menus and also draws them. Turn off the menu bar switch for now. |
| An app's menus are missing entirely | The same switch, the other way: turn it off and the app draws its own again. |
| A dialog opens behind its window | Some toolkits place dialogs themselves; moving it is harmless. |
| Very old toolkits look plain | Motif and similar are supported enough to run, not to look modern. |
Reading what an app actually said#
Each Linux app that MSL launches keeps its own log. If an app closes on its own or never appears, the log is where its last words are — see Logs and doctor for where to find them.
Starting the app from a terminal inside the instance is the other half of this, and often quicker: you see its output as it happens.