WSL and ManimGL

Getting ManimGL to work on WSL

On manim

manim is an animation package written in Python by Grant Sanderson, who makes educational math videos of extreme quality. Currently, there are several versions of manim, an old one, mostly used to compile the old videos, a new one, which uses OpenGL to show the videos as they’re made, not requiring them to be finished before seeing, and the community edition, which does require finishing the videos, but it’s better documented and easier to beginners (or so they say). I’m definitely a total beginner at this moment.

On Linux

In my experience, it is easier to use Python tools in Linux. On the other hand, I am forced to use Windows for work and leisure (and I have to admit, I like it, I find it stable and unobtrusive). The traditional ways of dealing with this are either:

1. Dual boot Linux and Windows

   This has given me significant headaches. It’s annoying to have to switch, sometimes your boot loader will simply stop working (I blame Windows), and you’ll have to spend an hour fixing it, and it’s difficult to access files between OSs (primarily Windows->Linux through).

2. Use a Virtual Machine (VM)

   This is a cool alternative. You can run Windows or Linux inside each other, have shared clipboards, shared folders and, if you’re ready to configure, you can even dedicate a graphics card to your VM, as shown by a video on LinusTechTips. A disadvantage is that you’ll want to give the VM quite a lot of RAM if you intend to work on something serious and not have it lag. Another disadvantage is that accessing your files in the VM can still be a bit painful if something bad happens to your VM. Still, it’s great, and if you have the required RAM, much more convenient than dual booting.

On WSL

Recently, Microsoft has released the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). With a bit of software magic, they made it possible to run an actual Linux Kernel on a very low level (AFAIK, it’s not “in” Windows, it’s kinda “parallel” to it). This makes it possible to more or less seamlessly join the best of both worlds.

Getting it running

Normally, WSL runs only in the terminal, and here’s the catch: manimGL requires a graphical environment right off the bat, to display the animations in real time. If you try to run that, you’ll get quite a few errors. In order to get it, or any graphical program, to show on Windows through WSL is to use a X-Server on Windows and connect it to WSL. I tried this before with VcXsrv, but I found it to be clunky and unintuitive. I found that some people recommended MobaXterm, and decided to give that a go.

Assuming you have manimgl installed, and (MobaXTerm)[https://mobaxterm.mobatek.net/download-home-edition.html] installed and running (including the X-server), you will need to configure your DISPLAY variable. To do this, on your .bashrc or .zshrc, add the following line ((thanks to nick janetakis)[https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/using-wsl-and-mobaxterm-to-create-a-linux-dev-environment-on-windows]):

export DISPLAY="$(/sbin/ip route | awk '/default/ { print $3 }'):0"

Be sure to save and reload your shell. Now, when you ran MobaXTerm for the first time, Windows probably asked about your firewall preferences. I had it set to Private only, and didn’t work at all. I went to the Firewall and network protection, then to Allow an application through the firewall. This can also be accessed through Control Panel->System and Safety->Windows Defender Firewall->Allowed applications. Allow yourself to change the settings and find xwin_mobax.exe, probably at the bottom of the list. I had to entries, one with Private checked, another one with Public set. I naively set both entries to both Private and Public (do it at your own risk), then clicked ok.

Last think, in MobaXterm, I went to Settings->Configurations->X11 and in X11 remote access, I set it to full. This was to stop it from requesting some permissions continuously (again, do it at your own risk - I barely know what I’m doing).

Now, to test. I used sudo apt install firefox, then typed firefox and voilá! It appeared!

Going back to manim, if you have the main repo cloned in WSL, you can use its test scripts. manimgl example_scenes.py, then select 01, and a huge window with the animation appeared! I was ecstatic when this happened. Took me a few hours to install everything and figure out how to get it running.

Conclusion

I’m liking WSL a lot, especially now that I can use graphical programs. Setting PyCharm and VSCode to access WSL is easy, as is using pyenv, pyenv virtualenv, jekyll and other Linux-inclined tools. Now, for my latest project, I got manim to work, and am looking forward to exploring its possibilities.

I know this post is a bit sparse on actual instructions. I might update it in the future with a series of commands to get every part running, from scratch.