Ubuntu 21.04 LTS will use Wayland instead of X.Org by default

Canonical set Wayland as the desktop default session as early as Ubuntu 17.10. In subsequent changes, the company has been testing Wayland and actively collecting user feedback. However, it was limited to the non-LTS long-term support version of Ubuntu using Wayland by default.

Now, this situation is about to change, Canonical decided to enable Wayland by default in Ubuntu 21.04 LTS to replace X.Org. But there are still some problems that have not been resolved, so if users use Nvidia graphics cards, they will continue to use X.Org by default, and other brands of graphics cards will use Wayland. Canonical is expected to solve the problem of the Nvidia graphics card in the new LTS version released in April 2022.

Initially Canonical tested Wayland in Ubuntu 17.10 and set the default desktop session at the time, but Canonical found that Wayland was not suitable for use in the LTS version, so Wayland was not enabled in the Ubuntu 18.04 LTS version. After other distributions have adopted Wayland, this is still quite a pressure for Canonical. However, although it is not very smooth, Canonical has not given up on continuing research, so now Canonical is ready to try to enable Wayland in Ubuntu 21.04 LTS version.

Canonical said:

“In the Ubuntu 17.10 cycle we tried Wayland as the default session but we didn’t feel confident at the time it was ready yet for an LTS. Things improved since, some of the blockers we found back then got resolved (desktop sharing), and that’s where the upstream focus is going. We believe now is the right time to try again, it should give us enough time before the next LTS to get proper feedback and sort out issues.”