Fedora Workstation 41 to phase out default GNOME X.Org session in favor of Wayland

Fedora Workstation, known for its default use of GNOME's Wayland session, has also maintained an installation of the GNOME X.Org session for fallback purposes or user preference. However, with the upcoming Fedora Workstation 41 release, a newly-approved plan will eliminate the default installation of the GNOME X.Org session in favor of the Wayland one.

This change was initially proposed for Fedora 40, but was considered too late for implementation. Thus, it will be formally introduced as a system-wide change in Fedora 41. Fedora will maintain support for X.Org in GNOME, but it will no longer be included by default in new installations. For users who upgrade between major Fedora releases, X.Org will still be available through in-place upgrades.

A message on a recently opened ticket regarding the Fedora Workstation confirmed the decision, stating, “Fedora Workstation WG discussed this today and we agreed we should do this for Fedora 41, since it is really too late already for F40 and it should really be handled as a System Wide Change anyway.”

Despite some user feedback suggesting that Wayland may not be fully ready for broad use due to ongoing issues, there’s a general agreement that the X.Org era is approaching its end, with Wayland poised to take the lead.