The Fedora 41 release proposes to transition the Anaconda installer to use the Wayland protocol instead of the current X11 protocol. This change is significant as it will allow the removal of dependencies that support X11, streamlining the installation process. However, migrating Anaconda to Wayland is a complex task that will impact the functionality of the installer.
One notable change will be the switch from Tigervnc to GRD (Gnome Remote Desktop) for remote installation, as Tigervnc is tied to X11. Additionally, the process for keyboard control and layout switching will be modified, replacing the Libxklavier library with the Systemd-Localed service via D-Bus, due to Wayland lacking a universal mechanism for keyboard control.
In conjunction with the transition to Wayland, a proposal has been made to stop supplying GNOME packages associated with X11 in the Fedora workstation assembly. While similar packages will still be available in the repository, they will no longer be included in installation and Live carriers built on the GNOME base.
Although the proposal has yet to be approved by the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee (FESCO), the Committee has already approved the removal of X11 sessions for GNOME in Fedora 41. This decision is driven by the advancement of Wayland support in proprietary NVIDIA drivers and FBDEV drivers, as well as the obsolescence of the X.org server in RHEL 9.
By focusing on Wayland support and eliminating X11, Fedora aims to enhance the efficiency of the graphic stack and allocate resources towards improving overall performance.