Wayland is rapidly shaping up to be the future of the Linux desktop, offering a more modern and secure alternative to the aging X11-based Xorg display server protocol. With its modular design, Wayland delivers smoother graphics, enhanced security, and better support for modern hardware.
While many people still have reservations over its adoption, citing issues like inconsistent feature support across desktop environments, compatibility gaps, and challenges for NVIDIA users, many Linux distributions are moving towards it.
Fedora, for instance, recently announced that starting with Fedora 43, its flagship edition, Workstation, will fully drop GNOME X11 support and run exclusively on Wayland, resulting in the complete removal of X11 session components.
And, now, as it stands, Ubuntu is also joining the Wayland-only club.
What's Happening: With the upcoming Ubuntu 25.10 release, the Xorg session will no longer be available for GNOME users. Instead, the Wayland session will be used by default.
The reasoning behind this move is the belief that Wayland has now reached an acceptable level of maturity in key areas such as NVIDIA driver support, a stronger security model, improved HiDPI handling, and a stable experience for most common workflows.
Plus, maintaining both X11 and Wayland sessions means more maintenance overhead for the developers. By following this approach, they are eliminating unnecessary work and staying in line with what's being done upstream with GNOME.
Announcing the change, Jean-Baptiste Lallement, Director of Engineering at Canonical, stated that:
This transition marks a new era for Ubuntu Desktop: modern and aligned with the direction of the broader Linux ecosystem. We understand that change can be disruptive, but we’re confident that the benefits of Wayland make this the right time.
We will continue to monitor feedback and ensure Ubuntu remains the most accessible and productive open-source desktop for everyone.
Thank you for being part of the journey.
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They are planning to accomplish this with Ubuntu 25.10, as it is the last interim release before the next long-term support (LTS) release comes out in April 2026.
What to Expect: For users, this means that GDM will no longer show the "Ubuntu on Xorg option". If you run X11 apps, then you don't need to worry as XWayland is included for running those.
However, if you can't move away from X11, then you can choose an alternative desktop environment that still supports Xorg. Users of recent LTS versions of Ubuntu, like 22.04 and 24.04, won't be affected by this change; it only affects users of Ubuntu 25.10 and later.
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