Ubuntu has decided to phase out Xorg entirely and transition to Wayland completely!

In a significant shift for the Linux desktop, Ubuntu has announced that its upcoming release, version 25.10, will fully embrace Wayland and drop support for GNOME X11. This decision follows a similar move made by Fedora with its Fedora 43 Workstation edition.

The change is driven by Wayland's improved NVIDIA driver support, stronger security model, enhanced HiDPI handling, and a stable experience for most common workflows. However, the move has raised concerns among some users due to issues like inconsistent feature support, compatibility gaps, and challenges for NVIDIA users.

Jean-Baptiste Lallement, Director of Engineering at Canonical, announced the change. He explained that the decision was made to eliminate unnecessary work and stay in line with what's being done upstream with GNOME. The developers believe that maintaining both X11 and Wayland sessions would mean more maintenance overhead.

As a result, the Xorg session will no longer be available for GNOME users in the upcoming Ubuntu 25.10 release. Instead, the Wayland session will be used by default. GDM will no longer show the "Ubuntu on Xorg" option, and users who cannot move away from X11 can choose alternative desktop environments that still support Xorg.

For those concerned about Wayland's adoption, it's worth noting that Wayland is rapidly becoming the future of the Linux desktop. It delivers smoother graphics, enhanced security, and better support for modern hardware. Moreover, Wayland offers a more modern and secure alternative to the aging X11-based Xorg display server protocol.

To ensure a smooth transition, XWayland is included for running X11 apps. Long-term support will be provided in the upcoming Ubuntu 25.10 release. 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.

With this move, Ubuntu joins the Wayland-only club, following in the footsteps of Fedora. The shift towards Wayland is a testament to the growing acceptance and adoption of this next-generation display server among Linux distributions.

Ubuntu has decided to phase out Xorg entirely and transition to Wayland completely!