Hi @Stefan Schippers , I was trying to install xschem on my windows 10 using WSL. I followed every steps as you mentioned in your youtube tutorial. However, after completing the installation process, when I try to run xschem the xschem window does not pop up. Rather I get a ‘%’ sign in the terminal and then nothing happens. Do you have any idea why this might happen or any suggestions to solve this?

The

%

prompt is expected. That's the xschem interpreter. Do you have a X windows manager like

Xming

running? See https://cc.jlab.org/windows/X11onWindows

I can confirm that in Linux if I un-set the DISPLAY variable and start xschem, it will drop you into the interpreter with no GUI, and no warning or complaint, either. So it sounds right that there is probably no X11 server running (or no DISPLAY variable set, but that's usually set automatically if an X11 server is detected). The following tip is nVidia-specific, but recently I learned that the nVidia CUDA driver for WSL2 has somehow integrated an X11 server directly into the video driver (https://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/wsl-user-guide/index.html), which is a pretty neat trick. Otherwise, WSL works with all the main freeware Windows X11 servers that I know about.

I had the same issue in the past - it was the same for really any GUI application. For windows 10, make sure you enable and use WSL2. You may also have to set the display env var, and use something like mobaxterm. The default GUI support in windows 10 WSL was limited last time I tried it out. Windows 11 WSL works automatically now. If you Google around using Windows 10 WSL2 for GUI applications, there should be several set up guides.

I will add a warning in xschem when no xserver (or no DISPLAY variable) is set. Thank you. Currently when no X is available xschem will work in console only mode, so you are still able to load schematics, generate netlists, export pdf/svg, etc using command mode.

@Mitch Bailey Thank you for your help. Actually I am stuck in another situation. I followed the link you provided. I am pretty new at these things. When I installed Putty and tried to set up x11 with putty, I got this screenshot. If I click open, it does not do anything. hence x11 is not setting up with putty. I followed step by step according to the link you provided. Can you please help me out?