# Swipl-win: no GUI

**URL:** <https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/t/swipl-win-no-gui/9634>\
**Category:** General\
**Tags:** bug\
**Created:** [May 27, 2026, 12:05am UTC](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/t/swipl-win-no-gui/9634 "2026-05-27T00:05:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![mike.elston](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/swi-prolog.discourse.group/mike.elston/32/3691_2.png) [@mike.elston](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/u/mike.elston)\
**Post date:** [May 27, 2026, 12:05am UTC](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/t/swipl-win-no-gui/9634/1 "2026-05-27T00:05:13Z")

</div>

Hi

I’ve just done a full rebuild which completed successfully but the swipl-win produced does not display the GUI interface:

```prolog
mike@meepi01:~$ swipl-win
Welcome to SWI-Prolog (threaded, 64 bits, version 10.1.7-41-gbf43410b0)
SWI-Prolog comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. This is free software.
Please run ?- license. for legal details.

For online help and background, visit https://www.swi-prolog.org
For built-in help, use ?- help(Topic). or ?- apropos(Word).

5 ?- emacs.
ERROR: Unknown procedure: emacs/0 (DWIM could not correct goal)
6 ?- 

```

Build steps:

```prolog
rm -rf ~/lib/swipl
cd ~
rm -rf swipl-devel
git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/SWI-Prolog/swipl-devel.git
cd swipl-devel
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=$HOME -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=PGO -G Ninja ..
ninja
ctest -j $(nproc) --output-on-failure
ninja install

```

I did recently upgrade to Ubuntu 26.04 LTS:

```prolog
mike@meepi01:~$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID:	Ubuntu
Description:	Ubuntu 26.04 LTS
Release:	26.04
Codename:	resolute

```

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jan](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/swi-prolog.discourse.group/jan/32/4_2.png) [@jan](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/u/jan)\
**Post date:** [May 27, 2026, 7:27am UTC](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/t/swipl-win-no-gui/9634/2 "2026-05-27T07:27:03Z")

</div>

Most likely something is wrong now with the SDL3 dependencies. After the initial cmake, run

```
cmake .

```

in the build dir and it will only show the things it is missing,

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mike.elston](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/swi-prolog.discourse.group/mike.elston/32/3691_2.png) [@mike.elston](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/u/mike.elston)\
**Post date:** [May 27, 2026, 11:17am UTC](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/t/swipl-win-no-gui/9634/3 "2026-05-27T11:17:55Z")

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Thanks Jan. Sorted. For some reason I had lost my SDL3 installation.

– Configuring SWI-Prolog-10.1.7  
– Dropped package xpce: Requires library SDL3

```prolog
sudo apt-get install \
    libcairo2-dev libpango1.0-dev libsdl3-dev libsdl3-image-dev

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jan](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/swi-prolog.discourse.group/jan/32/4_2.png) [@jan](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/u/jan)\
**Post date:** [May 27, 2026, 11:41am UTC](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/t/swipl-win-no-gui/9634/4 "2026-05-27T11:41:44Z")

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> [@mike.elston](#):
>
> For some reason I had lost my SDL3 installation.

Probably because Ubuntu 26.04 is the first stable release to officially include SDL3.