fails to build from source on nixos

[andrewrk]

Summary

On NixOS 25.05.803471.4792576cb003 (Warbler), which is the latest stable version released on May 23 2025, Zed fails to build from source without workarounds.

I actually did get it built successfully, but then it crashed at runtime. I was able to work around those crashes as well, resulting in a viable binary.

I'm using KDE Plasma version 6.3.5, which uses Wayland (but supports the X11 protocol just fine).

To reproduce the issue, start with this:

nix-shell zed.nix

Where zed.nix contains:

with import <nixpkgs> {}; {
  zedEditor = stdenv.mkDerivation {
    name = "zed-editor";

    hardeningDisable = [ "all" ];

    nativeBuildInputs = [
      clang
      copyDesktopItems
      curl
      perl
      pkg-config
      protobuf
      rustPlatform.bindgenHook
      cargo-about
    ];

    buildInputs = [
      cargo
      mold
      cmake

      vulkan-loader
      vulkan-validation-layers

      fontconfig
      freetype
      libgit2
      openssl
      sqlite
      zlib
      zstd
      bzip2
      alsa-lib
      libxkbcommon
      wayland
      xorg.libxcb
      xorg.libX11
    ];

    env = {
      ZSTD_SYS_USE_PKG_CONFIG = true;
      FONTCONFIG_FILE = makeFontsConf {
        fontDirectories = [
          "${src}/assets/fonts/plex-mono"
          "${src}/assets/fonts/plex-sans"
        ];
      };
      # Setting this environment variable allows to disable auto-updates
      # https://zed.dev/docs/development/linux#notes-for-packaging-zed
      ZED_UPDATE_EXPLANATION = "compiled from source";
      # Used by `zed --version`
      #RELEASE_VERSION = version;

      VK_LAYER_PATH="${pkgs.vulkan-validation-layers}/share/vulkan/explicit_layer.d";
    };
  };
}

Next, run cargo build --release.

The first problem is:

error: failed to run custom build command for `webrtc-sys v0.3.7 (https://github.com/zed-industries/livekit-rust-sdks?rev=80bb8f4c9112789f7c24cc98d8423010977806a6#80bb8f4c)`

Caused by:
  process didn't exit successfully: `/home/andy/src/zed/target/release/build/webrtc-sys-5fdfc74a5b2a031e/build-script-build` (exit status: 127)
  --- stderr
  /home/andy/src/zed/target/release/build/webrtc-sys-5fdfc74a5b2a031e/build-script-build: error while loading shared libraries: libzstd.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Somehow this produced a binary with missing rpaths:

ldd /home/andy/src/zed/target/release/build/webrtc-sys-5fdfc74a5b2a031e/build-script-build
        linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007f8bcfe2f000)
        libzstd.so.1 => not found
        libbz2.so.1 => not found

Even though zstd is available and reported by pkg-config:

$ pkg-config libzstd --libs
-L/nix/store/d8vq999dg607ha6718fimpakacfax0gd-zstd-1.5.7/lib -lzstd

I suspect this is due to hard-coding a dependency on mold and not relying on standard system linking.

I worked around this by using patchelf:

patchelf /home/andy/src/zed/target/release/build/webrtc-sys-5fdfc74a5b2a031e/build-script-build --add-rpath /nix/store/d8vq999dg607ha6718fimpakacfax0gd-zstd-1.5.7/lib
patchelf /home/andy/src/zed/target/release/build/webrtc-sys-5fdfc74a5b2a031e/build-script-build --add-rpath /nix/store/zrnqzhcvlpiycqbswl0w172y4bpn0lb4-bzip2-1.0.8/lib

After continuing the build, a zed binary is produced. However it has a similar problem:

[nix-shell:~/src/zed]$ ldd target/release/zed 
        linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007fa245a70000)
        libm.so.6 => /nix/store/cg9s562sa33k78m63njfn1rw47dp9z0i-glibc-2.40-66/lib/libm.so.6 (0x00007fa237517000)
        libstdc++.so.6 => not found
        libasound.so.2 => not found
        libzstd.so.1 => not found
        libgit2.so.1.9 => not found
        libz.so.1 => not found
        libxcb.so.1 => not found
        libX11-xcb.so.1 => not found
        libX11.so.6 => not found
        libxkbcommon.so.0 => not found
        libxkbcommon-x11.so.0 => not found

Again these problems can be worked around with patchelf:

patchelf target/release/zed --add-rpath /nix/store/d8vq999dg607ha6718fimpakacfax0gd-zstd-1.5.7/lib
patchelf target/release/zed --add-rpath /nix/store/7c0v0kbrrdc2cqgisi78jdqxn73n3401-gcc-14.2.1.20250322-lib/lib
patchelf target/release/zed --add-rpath /nix/store/ap1g7dnwz1pyinx0wlj0m0z9ypzl7pyw-alsa-lib-1.2.13/lib
patchelf target/release/zed --add-rpath /nix/store/hd1ys7pkiablfdgjvd1aq15k9jplsm2j-libgit2-1.9.0-lib/lib
patchelf target/release/zed --add-rpath /nix/store/srby6wmvg7dp454pwb6qvaxdiri38sc1-zlib-1.3.1/lib
patchelf target/release/zed --add-rpath /nix/store/qn01pv62sbpzbsy0a6m0q23syrmkk3bv-libxcb-1.17.0/lib
patchelf target/release/zed --add-rpath /nix/store/mpvxc1dbpnk74345lk69dw497iqcjvj0-libX11-1.8.12/lib
patchelf target/release/zed --add-rpath /nix/store/4di7f8w515xl6grwv13pk6855awav0b1-libxkbcommon-1.8.1/lib

Next we hit this problem, with the zed binary crashing at runtime:

$ target/release/zed 
2025-06-06T18:15:35-07:00 INFO  [zed] ========== starting zed ==========

thread 'main' panicked at crates/gpui/src/platform/linux/wayland/client.rs:414:49:
called `Result::unwrap()` on an `Err` value: NoWaylandLib
note: run with `RUST_BACKTRACE=1` environment variable to display a backtrace
6:15 PM

This is unexpected because the wayland library is indeed available, configured, in the appropriate paths, etc.

With the additional workaround of WAYLAND_DISPLAY="", we get to the next problem:

2025-06-06T18:20:22-07:00 INFO  [zed] ========== starting zed ==========
2025-06-06T18:20:22-07:00 INFO  [gpui::platform::linux::x11::client] Compositor detection: _NET_WM_CM_S?=false, _NET_WM_CM_OWNER=false, _NET_SUPPORTING_WM_CHECK=true
2025-06-06T18:20:22-07:00 INFO  [gpui::platform::linux::x11::client] x11: compositor present: true, gtk_frame_extents_supported: true
2025-06-06T18:20:22-07:00 ERROR [blade_graphics::hal::init] Missing Vulkan entry points: LibraryLoadFailure(DlOpen { desc: "libvulkan.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory" })

thread 'main' panicked at crates/gpui/src/platform/linux/x11/client.rs:378:47:
Unable to init GPU context: Platform(Loading(LibraryLoadFailure(DlOpen { desc: "libvulkan.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory" })))
note: run with `RUST_BACKTRACE=1` environment variable to display a backtrace

Again, can be worked around by adding another rpath to the binary:

patchelf target/release/zed --add-rpath /nix/store/nszik1q8ffmvsqk54kbc75dwyxwvi2nm-vulkan-loader-1.4.313.0/lib

Finally, we get a viable binary.

Zed Version and System Specs

46773eb

[P1n3appl3]

Sorry I missed this issue, did you try using the nix shell provided in our repo?

on the latest HEAD (3dfbd9e57c for me) I've just double checked that cargo run works in the devshell on aarch64-darwin and x86_64-linux (tested on both wayland and x11 on separate machines to be sure).

[andrewrk]

Nope I don't really like to do that for the same reason I don't like to do curl | sh, and for the same reason that distro maintainers don't use that shell file either.

I don't need help, I just wanted to offer the information that I gathered in case it helps you.

[P1n3appl3]

Thanks for clarifying. The nixpkgs zed-editor maintainers and I collaborate and share fixes with each other, but our in-tree devshell and their package have different goals so we keep them separate.

I think all of the issues you mentioned are already solved and/or documented in our build, so I'll go ahead and close this as resolved. Feel free to re-open or file another issue if you run into more problems running/developing zed on NixOS.