Vscode elixirLS setup - want to fix/understand "couldn't create connection to server"

I’m new to elixir and just tried to install the elixirLS extension for VScode(ium) and it is throwing some errors that I would like help in understanding. I have not gotten to the stage of writing any code, only browsing to my tutorial folder.

I can see it’s missing asdf, vfox & mise. Asdf seems to be some tool version manager (just what I wanted!) Ok, so is vfox… and mise.

Then it is also asking for SSL. I have tried installing openssl on my system, but it didn’t fix the issue and I don’t feel great about installing a million packages on my sytem hoping for the issue to go away when this was not mentioned in the elixir install instruction (or the tutorial).

I’m not sure what VScode is trying to do right now when I install the extension. I’m guessing that maybe it’s trying to start a erlang vm to be able to run code when I’m ready, or maybe it needs one it to do the linting or something.

I just disabled/enabled the extension on an empty folder and there are no errors. So maybe I can ignore this until later.

If you have any advice to improve my understanding, that would be wonderful. Thanks.

2026-08-31 11:02:57.232 [error] Running /home/apz/.vscode-oss/extensions/elixir-lsp.elixir-ls-0.31.1-universal/elixir-ls-release/launch.sh
2026-08-31 11:02:57.234 [error] Preferred shell is fish, launching launch.fish
2026-08-31 11:02:57.263 [error] Looking for asdf install
2026-08-31 11:02:57.264 [error] which: no asdf in (/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/bin/site_perl:/usr/bin/vendor_perl:/usr/bin/core_perl)
2026-08-31 11:02:57.264 [error] asdf not found
2026-08-31 11:02:57.264 [error] Looking for mise executable
2026-08-31 11:02:57.264 [error] which: no mise in (/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/bin/site_perl:/usr/bin/vendor_perl:/usr/bin/core_perl)
2026-08-31 11:02:57.264 [error] mise not found
2026-08-31 11:02:57.264 [error] Looking for vfox executable
2026-08-31 11:02:57.265 [error] which: no vfox in (/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/bin/site_perl:/usr/bin/vendor_perl:/usr/bin/core_perl)
2026-08-31 11:02:57.265 [error] vfox not found
2026-08-31 11:02:57.882 [error] Installing ElixirLS release v0.31.1
2026-08-31 11:02:57.882 [error] Running in /home/apz/Projects/pragstudio-elixir-code
2026-08-31 11:02:57.935 [error] * Updating elixir_ls (https://github.com/elixir-lsp/elixir-ls.git - v0.31.1)
2026-08-31 11:02:58.607 [error] ** (EXIT from #PID<0.95.0>) an exception was raised:
2026-08-31 11:02:58.607 [error]     ** (Mix.Error) The application "ssl" could not be found. This may happen if your Operating System broke Erlang into multiple packages and may be fixed by installing the missing "erlang-dev" and "erlang-ssl" packages
2026-08-31 11:02:58.607 [error]         (mix 1.20.2) lib/mix.ex:647: Mix.raise/2
2026-08-31 11:02:58.608 [error]         (mix 1.20.2) lib/mix.ex:706: Mix.ensure_application!/4
2026-08-31 11:02:58.608 [error]         (mix 1.20.2) lib/mix.ex:678: Mix.ensure_application!/1
2026-08-31 11:02:58.608 [error]         (mix 1.20.2) lib/mix/utils.ex:864: Mix.Utils.read_httpc/1
2026-08-31 11:02:58.608 [error]         (mix 1.20.2) lib/mix/utils.ex:808: anonymous fn/2 in Mix.Utils.read_path/2
2026-08-31 11:02:58.608 [error]         (elixir 1.20.2) lib/task/supervised.ex:105: Task.Supervised.invoke_mfa/2
2026-08-31 11:02:58.608 [error]         (elixir 1.20.2) lib/task/supervised.ex:40: Task.Supervised.reply/4
2026-08-31 11:02:58.608 [error] 
2026-08-31 11:02:58.616 [error] Server process exited with code 1.
2026-08-31 11:02:58.617 [error] Server initialization failed.

elixir --version
Erlang/OTP 29 [erts-17.0.1] [source] [64-bit] [smp:12:12] [ds:12:12:10] [async-threads:1] [jit:ns]

Elixir 1.20.2 (compiled with Erlang/OTP 29)

7.1.4-1-cachyos