Hi!
I generally run NixOS stable, but I wanted to pull in a newer version of the Zed editor to get some newer features (e.g., external agent history support). I’m using programs.zed-editor in home manager to install and manage it. I do not use flakes.
When I set package = pkgs.zed-editor in my home.nix, the version from stable nixpkgs (0.218.6) successfully launches using GPU acceleration and is passably responsive. However, when I install the version from unstable nixpkgs (0.225.13), Zed is not able to use GPU acceleration and falls back to llvm-pipe, which is quite laggy on my older Haswell-based machine.
At first, I was just doing package = unstable.zed-editor, so I figured it was probably an incompatibility between the unstable mesa libs and the stable mesa install (wouldn’t be the first time). However, when I tried building the package with dependencies from stable, it still didn’t work.
I tried this at first (the latest Zed package requires at least rustc 1.92 to build):
package = pkgs.callPackage <nixos-unstable/pkgs/by-name/ze/zed-editor/package.nix> { rustPlatform = unstable.rustPlatform; };
And when that still didn’t work, I rebuilt Rust using stable deps too just in case the differing glibc versions were somehow causing trouble:
package = pkgs.callPackage <nixos-unstable/pkgs/by-name/ze/zed-editor/package.nix> {
rustPlatform = let
rust_1_93 = pkgs.callPackage <nixos-unstable/pkgs/development/compilers/rust/1_93.nix> {
pkgsBuildHost = pkgs.pkgsBuildHost // { inherit rust_1_93; };
};
in
rust_1_93.packages.stable.rustPlatform;
};
I confirmed that this last one is linked to all of the same libraries as the version installed from stable. However, it reports llvm-pipe as the only available adapter.
Am I doing something wrong that would still be keeping it from working? Could it be a change in Zed itself?
Here’s the log from starting the version in stable, which successfully uses GPU acceleration:
2026-03-05T21:32:08-08:00 INFO [zed] ========== starting zed version 0.218.6+stable, sha unknown ==========
2026-03-05T21:32:08-08:00 INFO [gpui::platform::linux::x11::client] x11: compositor present: true, gtk_frame_extents_supported: true
MESA-INTEL: warning: Haswell Vulkan support is incomplete
2026-03-05T21:32:08-08:00 INFO [gpui::platform::linux::x11::client] Using scale factor from GPUI_X11_SCALE_FACTOR: 2
2026-03-05T21:32:08-08:00 INFO [zed_xim::x11rb] Try connect ibus
2026-03-05T21:32:08-08:00 INFO [crashes] spawning crash handler process
2026-03-05T21:32:08-08:00 INFO [sqlez::migrations] Found 9 foreign key relationships to check
2026-03-05T21:32:08-08:00 WARN [zed::reliability] Minidump endpoint not set
2026-03-05T21:32:08-08:00 INFO [gpui::platform::linux::platform] activate is not implemented on Linux, ignoring the call
2026-03-05T21:32:08-08:00 INFO [gpui::platform::linux::x11::window] Using Visual { id: 192, colormap: 0, depth: 32 }
2026-03-05T21:32:08-08:00 INFO [gpui::platform::linux::x11::window] Creating colormap 67108866
2026-03-05T21:32:08-08:00 INFO [gpui::platform::blade::blade_renderer] Initializing Blade pipelines for surface SurfaceInfo { format: Bgra8Unorm, alpha: Ignored }
2026-03-05T21:32:08-08:00 INFO [crashes] connected to crash handler process after 100ms
2026-03-05T21:32:08-08:00 INFO [crashes] crash handler registered
2026-03-05T21:32:08-08:00 INFO [workspace] Rendered first frame
2026-03-05T21:32:08-08:00 INFO [zed::zed] Using GPU: GpuSpecs { is_software_emulated: false, device_name: "Intel(R) Iris(R) Pro Graphics P5200 (HSW GT3)", driver_name: "Intel open-source Mesa driver", driver_info: "Mesa 25.2.6" }
2026-03-05T21:32:08-08:00 INFO [extension_host] rebuilt extension index in 2.308715ms
2026-03-05T21:32:08-08:00 INFO [crates/workspace/src/workspace.rs:3122] Couldn't find any enabled panel for the Left dock.
2026-03-05T21:32:08-08:00 INFO [sqlez::migrations] Found 9 foreign key relationships to check
2026-03-05T21:32:08-08:00 INFO [sqlez::migrations] Found 10 foreign key relationships to check
2026-03-05T21:32:08-08:00 INFO [gpui::platform::linux::x11::client] Refreshing every 27ms
2026-03-05T21:32:08-08:00 INFO [zed_xim::x11rb] XConnected server on 56623116, transport version: 0.0, TRANSPORT_MAX: 20
2026-03-05T21:32:08-08:00 INFO [sqlez::migrations] Found 11 foreign key relationships to check
2026-03-05T21:32:08-08:00 INFO [extension_host] installing extension html latest version
2026-03-05T21:32:09-08:00 INFO [extension_host] rebuilt extension index in 3.09706ms
2026-03-05T21:32:09-08:00 INFO [extension_host] extensions updated. loading 1, reloading 0, unloading 0
Here’s the log from the version in unstable, when built using all stable dependencies as in my last attempt mentioned above:
2026-03-05T22:01:26-08:00 INFO [zed] ========== starting zed version 0.225.13+stable, sha unknown ==========
2026-03-05T22:01:26-08:00 INFO [gpui::platform::linux::x11::client] x11: compositor present: true, gtk_frame_extents_supported: true
2026-03-05T22:01:26-08:00 INFO [gpui::platform::linux::x11::client] Using scale factor from GPUI_X11_SCALE_FACTOR: 2
2026-03-05T22:01:26-08:00 INFO [gpui::platform::linux::platform] Compositor GPU hint: vendor=0x8086, device=0x0d26 (from dev 226:1)
2026-03-05T22:01:26-08:00 INFO [zed_xim::x11rb] Try connect ibus
2026-03-05T22:01:26-08:00 INFO [crashes] spawning crash handler process
2026-03-05T22:01:26-08:00 INFO [sqlez::migrations] Found 9 foreign key relationships to check
2026-03-05T22:01:26-08:00 WARN [zed::reliability] Minidump endpoint not set
2026-03-05T22:01:26-08:00 INFO [gpui::platform::linux::platform] activate is not implemented on Linux, ignoring the call
2026-03-05T22:01:27-08:00 INFO [gpui::platform::linux::x11::window] Using Visual { id: 192, colormap: 0, depth: 32 }
2026-03-05T22:01:27-08:00 INFO [gpui::platform::linux::x11::window] Creating colormap 79691778
2026-03-05T22:01:27-08:00 INFO [crashes] connected to crash handler process after 100ms
2026-03-05T22:01:27-08:00 INFO [crashes] crash handler registered
MESA-INTEL: warning: Haswell Vulkan support is incomplete
2026-03-05T22:01:27-08:00 INFO [gpui::platform::wgpu::wgpu_context] Found 1 GPU adapter(s):
2026-03-05T22:01:27-08:00 INFO [gpui::platform::wgpu::wgpu_context] - llvmpipe (LLVM 21.1.7, 256 bits) (vendor=0x10005, device=0x0000, backend=Vulkan, type=Cpu)
2026-03-05T22:01:27-08:00 INFO [gpui::platform::wgpu::wgpu_context] Testing adapter: llvmpipe (LLVM 21.1.7, 256 bits) (Vulkan)...
2026-03-05T22:01:27-08:00 INFO [gpui::platform::wgpu::wgpu_context] Selected GPU (passed configuration test): llvmpipe (LLVM 21.1.7, 256 bits) (Vulkan)
2026-03-05T22:01:27-08:00 INFO [gpui::platform::wgpu::wgpu_context] Selected GPU adapter: "llvmpipe (LLVM 21.1.7, 256 bits)" (Vulkan)
2026-03-05T22:01:27-08:00 INFO [crates/workspace/src/workspace.rs:3500] Couldn't find any enabled panel for the Left dock.
2026-03-05T22:01:27-08:00 INFO [workspace] Rendered first frame
2026-03-05T22:01:27-08:00 INFO [zed::zed] Using GPU: GpuSpecs { is_software_emulated: true, device_name: "llvmpipe (LLVM 21.1.7, 256 bits)", driver_name: "llvmpipe", driver_info: "Mesa 25.2.6 (LLVM 21.1.7)" }
2026-03-05T22:01:27-08:00 INFO [gpui::platform::linux::x11::client] Refreshing every 27ms
2026-03-05T22:01:27-08:00 INFO [zed_xim::x11rb] XConnected server on 56623118, transport version: 0.0, TRANSPORT_MAX: 20
2026-03-05T22:01:27-08:00 INFO [extension_host] rebuilt extension index in 4.43593ms
2026-03-05T22:01:27-08:00 INFO [sqlez::migrations] Found 10 foreign key relationships to check
2026-03-05T22:01:27-08:00 INFO [sqlez::migrations] Found 10 foreign key relationships to check
2026-03-05T22:01:27-08:00 INFO [sqlez::migrations] Found 11 foreign key relationships to check
2026-03-05T22:01:27-08:00 INFO [extension_host] installing extension html latest version
2026-03-05T22:01:29-08:00 INFO [extension_host] rebuilt extension index in 936.135µs
2026-03-05T22:01:29-08:00 INFO [extension_host] extensions updated. loading 1, reloading 0, unloading 0
Any help or hints would be greatly appreciated.