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Issue #414: no longer install gnome xorg sessions by default - fedora-workstation - Pagure.io
https://pagure.io/fedora-workstation/issue/414#comment-899128
https://pagure.io/fedora-workstation/issue/414#comment-899128
I tried Gnome with Wayland and an Nvidia card just yesterday, it worked fine so far with the proprietary drivers. NixOS not Fedora though.
I use Wayland on NixOS too and everything works fine except slight flickering in games.
I think it'll be fixed soon though and I can fully move to Wayland.
Can confirm. Wayland with new nvidia GPU is currently unusable even with the proprietary drivers. F39
I am currently in F39 Wayland with proprietary nVidia drivers and I have not experienced any issues. (Laptop Quadro P3200)
Edit: this was a useless comment. OP specified new, my laptop is an old boy.
It’s horrible. My laptop with hybrid graphics works ok except for a brief flicker every time it wakes from sleep. It’s not a big deal. My desktop with dedicated nvidia is a hot mess - constant flickering. Steam is borderline non-functional and there are all kinds of graphical glitches on the desktop. I’m stuck with X11 on that machine.
0 of my issues with Wayland stem from my nVidia GPU.
I genuinely think it's a lie told often enough that has become true.
Wayland is buggy and unstable regardless of hardware.
I've been using it for 5 years and it works great on Intel graphics. I especially like the improved battery life and stability.
I think this is fair. Part of the ethos of Fedora is being a forward-thinking distro that spearheads new solutions.
And Gnome's been pretty great on Wayland for a long time now anyway.
Besides, adding support back is as simple as adding a repo. If you want to enable X11 again, it's a trivial task.
E: apparently not even adding a repo, it's in the base repositories.
Wayland isn't all that new anymore anyway.
AFAIK they already defaulted to Wayland years ago, and a few years that I've used it on my work PC I had no problems.
If we keep it up, in 10 years a new project to replace Wayland will be started, and in another 20 it'll be replaced. Not bad, but not great. 3.6 Roentgen.
Tbf Wayland released 15 years ago but its an ecosystem rather than one tool. Wayland has evolved and other parts of the system have been built and refined. Plus XWayland compatibiliry layer is an essential component as so little software has been rewritten to work with wayland natively.
We're only really now at the point where most users can use wayland by default without errors. But I'm still experiencing software and tools that force me to go back to X11. It makes sense for Fedora to drop X11 as default if it's a more "cutting edge" distro but I don't think Debian for example will be doing so for years to come.
I agree with all that your said, but my point is that software age has little to do with when something should be made default. It's about being the right choice, like you said.
Plus XWayland compatibiliry layer is an essential component as so little software has been rewritten to work with wayland natively.
Basically all Qt4/5/6 software and all GTK 3/4 software works on Wayland natively, outside of a few edge cases... what else is there aside from games?
It also means years for Fedora. They have a development cycle too. Things that they announce today might be considered for the next cycle and might actually make it in Fedora two cycles from current.
Being the first major distro to force the adoption of new technologies is kinda Fedora's whole thing, so it's not really surprising. It's annoying for people on Fedora who use features Wayland doesn't have yet, but they can jump through a few hoops to get X11 back, or better yet switch to a distro that cares more about giving users options than they do about beta testing new technologies for their corporate overlords.
Still, somebody has be first, and it's past time to get serious about this whole transition, so I can hardly try to claim this is a bad thing.
I would support this, but Wayland always lacks support for remote. I have to switch to x11 if I want to work on it via teamviewer (past) or rustdesk (present).
I just tested freerdp on gnome wayland and it works (via Settings -> Sharing -> Remote Desktop). Combined with tailscale/zerotier, you should be able to remote from anywhere via RDP.
It cannot be used to log in, potentially can’t even unlock but I haven’t used it in a while (Edit: confirmed it cannot connect if locked). A reboot preventing access until I go back to the local console is not fun.
I realize for their rustdesk example it’s not really different iirc, but there are solutions for x11.
GNOME 46 (currently in release candidate mode and fully releasing later this month on March 20) is adding support for remote graphical logins via rdp:
https://9to5linux.com/gnome-46-to-introduce-headless-remote-logins-via-gnome-display-manager
So you'll be able to do this pretty soon, after upgrading.
It'll be in Fedora 40, scheduled for release around April 16.
https://fedorapeople.org/groups/schedule/f-40/f-40-all-tasks.html
Ah, I see. I disable automatic lock on my desktop and have automatic login so it was not an issue for me.
This works in a private network you own. But my remote system is at work. I can not use it with full automatic login. Hell it's even encrypted and has a BIOS PW.
You can use the built in remote access tool. Also Rustdesk does have some support but it is getting better slowly.
So basically what KDE has done with Plasma 6 onwards. Wayland is standard, but you can still use X11 if required.
An understandable decision. At some point you have to start switching to Wayland.
Not exactly the same.
Plasma 6 still installs the X11 session. This change will make it so the Gnome X11 session is not getting installed by deafult, so you need to install it yourself if you need it. In Plasma 6, you just change to the X11 session in your Display Manager.
No, it is not the same thing. From the Pagure issue:
From my recollection the WG earlier discussed about the removal of gnome-session-xsession, but we decided not to do that (wisely) until upstream drops it
It’s not like KDE, and when someone updates to F40, it won’t even remove Xorg. It just won’t be installed by anaconda by default in new installs.
Your quote describes literally the exact same thing that Fedora KDE 40 does. Yes, they wanted to go further and remove the Xorg bits already, but that got rolled back.
The KDE packaging team is no longer packaging Xorg, but the GNOME team is. The “re-upstreaming” is a completely different effort with no guarantees on bugs. In addition, the package providing Xorg support in KDE is to be marked obsoleted and will be removed when upgrading. Here’s the actual ruling:
KDE packages which reintroduce support for X11 are allowed in the main Fedora repositories, however they may not be included by default on any release-blocking deliverable (ISO, image, etc.). The KDE SIG should provide a notice before major changes, but is not responsible for ensuring that these packages adapt.
GNOME Xorg still has full support from the team that has always worked on GNOME, unlike Plasma’s Xorg on Fedora 40.
Because Gnome defaulted to Wayland for a long time, before they now plan to ditch it's X11 session, while Plasma just recently started defaulting to Wayland. I think Fedora 38 is when they defaulted to wayland in the Plasma edition. Gnome had a way longer lead time, IIRC.
Gnome defaulted to Wayland when it was still very much unusable to be frank, it doesn't really have any relevance for removing the Xorg session.
I think Fedora 38 is when they defaulted to wayland in the Plasma edition
34, not 38.
At some point you have to start switching to Wayland.
When it's a drop-in replacement for X, I'll switch.
I don't even notice X is here. If I notice Wayland is there, it's doing something wrong.
On my RTX 3080 laptop I get a significantly lower frame rate on my laptop screen (240hz) and 4k external monitor (144hz) when using Wayland. Wayland has come a long way but I'm still going to be using X11 for at least the near future.
I think this makes sense. I still need X11 for VR because GNOME still doesn't have display leasing on Wayland but once that gets implemented I won't be using X11 anymore. I think most people don't need X11 anymore either. For people like me who still need it for specific things, it can just be installed again manually.