Issues with X11 forwarding from WSL 2 #290

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adam · 2025-12-29T00:23:24+01:00

adam commented

2025-12-29 00:23:24 +01:00

Originally created by @aarivex on GitHub (Dec 12, 2021).

I'm attempting to get Monterey running on a Debian 11 VM (KVM enabled) with X11 being forwarded to both my WSL 2 Debian 11 and my Windows 10 host that has a X server running (VcXsrv). Imagine it like this:

Windows 10 21H2, Main PC, VcXsrv -> Debian 10 (WSL 2, latest kernel, X11 forwarding over SSH) -> Debian 11 KVM server

As it turns out, it isn't as easy as I have expected.

First I had to tackle down the gtk initialization failed error and finally got it past it today.
Turns out the issue was with the DISPLAY environment variable pointing at something wrong. I fixed this with -e "DISPLAY=:10.

This was especially time consuming since any other app would immediately show up in a new window on my host (xclock, xeyes), and the error message didn't help at all since I've been through almost any issue here regarding the same error, and almost everyone had another problem.

But it still won't start. The error doesn't show up anymore, but it doesn't do anything after the ALSA audio initialization step either, where the error would initially show up. No new window, no sign of work, nothing.

And before losing myself in this for another several hours again, I thought I'd ask if this is even possible in first place.

I've already tried out the VNC version and it worked (I could even upgrade to Monterey to install Xcode!), but I'd still like to have this directly from Docker instead of VNC, though it will probably lag a lot.

Could've been my impatience as well. But the VNC version started right off to the bootloader.

Thanks!

Originally created by @aarivex on GitHub (Dec 12, 2021). I'm attempting to get Monterey running on a Debian 11 VM (KVM enabled) with X11 being forwarded to both my WSL 2 Debian 11 and my Windows 10 host that has a X server running (VcXsrv). Imagine it like this: Windows 10 21H2, Main PC, VcXsrv -> Debian 10 (WSL 2, latest kernel, X11 forwarding over SSH) -> Debian 11 KVM server As it turns out, it isn't as easy as I have expected. First I had to tackle down the `gtk initialization failed` error and finally got it past it today. Turns out the issue was with the DISPLAY environment variable pointing at something wrong. I fixed this with `-e "DISPLAY=:10`. This was especially time consuming since any other app would immediately show up in a new window on my host (xclock, xeyes), and the error message didn't help at all since I've been through almost any issue here regarding the same error, and almost everyone had another problem. But it still won't start. The error doesn't show up anymore, but it doesn't do anything after the ALSA audio initialization step either, where the error would initially show up. No new window, no sign of work, nothing. And before losing myself in this for another several hours again, I thought I'd ask if this is even possible in first place. I've already tried out the VNC version and it worked (I could even upgrade to Monterey to install Xcode!), but I'd still like to have this directly from Docker instead of VNC, though it will probably lag a lot. Could've been my impatience as well. But the VNC version started right off to the bootloader. Thanks!

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Reference: starred/Docker-OSX#290