Ubuntu first switched to Wayland as its default display server in 2017, before reverting the following year. It tried again in 2021 and has stuck with it since.
But while Wayland is what most of us now use after installing Ubuntu (aware of it or otherwise) anyone doing so on a PC or laptop equipped an NVIDIA graphics card will instead log-in to an Xorg/X11 session.
Why? Because NVIDIA’s proprietary graphics drivers (which many people, especially gamers, choose to use for the best performance and full access to hardware capabilities) haven’t supported Wayland as well as as they (arguably) could’ve.
Past tense there since the situation has changed during the past few years. NVIDIA has warmed up to Wayland — partly as it had no choice given the display server tech is now the de facto standard in most Linux distros and partly because it wants to: opportunities, ahoy!
So with the NVIDIA + Wayland sitch’ in a better —not perfect— state Canonical’s engineers say they feel confident enough in the experience to make the Ubuntu Wayland session default for all NVIDIA graphics card users in Ubuntu 24.10.
“There are still a few known issues with this combination and due to the heavy use of Ubuntu Desktop in AI/ML, VFX and other industries we concluded that it was too early to make that switch in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS,” the interim Engineering Director for Ubuntu Desktop says.
Given that interim (aka short-term) Ubuntu releases are designed to function as a ‘test bed’ for substantive changes angled for inclusion in future long-term support (LTS) releases, the sooner the switch happens the sooner real-world testing, fixing, etc., can take place.
Not that anyone need wait for the Ubuntu 24.10 release to use Wayland on NVIDIA. All supported versions of Ubuntu can run Wayland on NVIDIA but —important— depending on which release and which NVIDIA driver version is in use…
Well, let’s just sat that some expectation and/or config adjustment may be required.
Still, this is a deeply exciting development and may help Ubuntu follow in the steps of other distros in choosing to drop Xorg/X11 from its ISO — though maybe not from the archive just yet, eh ‘Buntz?
I don’t have an NVIDIA graphics hardware myself so I’m keen to hear from those of you who do: is this something you’re excited for? Have you tried Wayland recently? How are things? Let me know in the comments!