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GNOME 50 Ends the X11 Era After Decades (linuxiac.com)

submitted 1 day ago by cm0002@toast.ooo to c/linux@programming.dev

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Although Wayland has been GNOME’s default session since 2016, X11 has continued to linger in the codebase—until now. That changed with the recent merging of two PRs (here and here), which completely removed the X11 codebase from both Mutter, GNOME’s default window manager and compositor, as well as the GNOME Shell itself.

In other words, the GNOME project is finally closing one of the longest chapters in Linux desktop history. With the upcoming GNOME 50 release, scheduled for mid-march 2026, the desktop environment will officially drop support for the native X11 session, making Wayland the sole display system moving forward.

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[–] LeFantome@programming.dev 1 points 2 hours ago

You are the one preaching and yelling.

Stay on X if you want. As you say, that is the freedom Open Source provides. I use ancient hardware. To each their own. If I was still using XFCE, I would still be using X myself*.

But if you are going to voluntarily stay behind, stop complaining that the bus left without you.

Wayland users are in the majority. By the time Mint (Cinnamon) flips to Wayland (2026?) and GTK5 is released (2028?) it will be over 90%. Almost all GNOME and Plasma users are Wayland now and that must be 60% already (without even counting Hyprland, Sway, COSMIC, or Niri).

We already have Wayland only distros (eg. RHEL10). GNOME will not even be the first Wayland only DE (COSMIC). The ship has sailed.

I have one box that uses XFCE on Wayland but if I wanted to use XFCE as my main desktop, I would probably use X. My daily drivers are Niri and Plasma Wayland.