Major graphics glitch on Debian/Ubuntu

Bug Reports
1

I am trying to use GPlates on Linux. I successfully managed to compile GPlates from source code, but when I launch it, I am getting a weird graphical glitch in the main window. Here is a screenshot of it:

gplates_ubuntu_graphics_glitch
gplates_ubuntu_graphics_glitch1920×954 92.2 KB

I imported a .jpeg as a raster to see if that fixes the problem, but it doesn’t. The main window, where the map projection should be, just shows these graphical glitches no matter what I try to do.

I compiled the source code and tried out GPlates using both Debian 12.5 and Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. The error is exactly the same on both distros.

Has anyone had the same problem? Does anyone know how to fix it? I’d be thankful for any help.

2

For Ubuntu 23.10 and above, unfortunately you need to run GPlates from the command-line as:

QT_QPA_PLATFORM=xcb gplates

See this post for more info. It’s also mentioned on the download page.

This is a workaround for an OpenGL initialisation issue on Wayland, which will go away once we’ve finished porting OpenGL to Vulkan (for GPlates 3.0).

By the way, I will soon add a new GPlates package for Ubuntu 24.04 LTS so others don’t have to compile it.

1 Like
3

Thank you, that did solve the problem.

My apologies, I hadn’t seen the note on the Download page since I only quickly looked at the “GPlates source code” section.