GNOME Proposes Changes to Terminate X11 Support

9 Oct 2023 5:18 am GMT+0000 Date Time

Jordan Petridis Removes X11 Support from GNOME
Jordan Petridis, responsible for quality control and release of GNOME, has submitted a request for a change that deletes the GNOME-SESSION SYSTEMD Targets package for launching in the environment with X11. This move is considered the first step towards discontinuing support for the X11 protocol in GNOME. However, at the current stage, the remaining functionality required to launch X11 sessions will remain in place. It is planned to remove this functionality in the next development cycle, but users will still be able to manually add SystemD-Targets to restore X11 support. The reasoning behind this change is that X11 testing has been gradually decreasing among developers. Since 2016, the Wayland protocol has been used by default in GNOME, and some developers believe it is time to completely abandon X11 and concentrate efforts on supporting only Wayland. Joshua Strogoba, a developer of the Budgie Desktop, expressed his opposition to the removal of X11 support from gnome-session. Strogoba mentioned that both the Budgie Desktop and Pantheon Desktop projects, which rely on GNOME technology, are currently fully supported by X11. If X11 support is removed from GNOME-SESSION, they will have to create their own forks of this component to maintain compatibility.

Jordan Petridis Removes X11 Support from GNOME

Jordan Petridis, responsible for quality control and release of GNOME, has submitted a request for a change that deletes the GNOME-SESSION SYSTEMD Targets package for launching in the environment with X11. This move is considered the first step towards discontinuing support for the X11 protocol in GNOME. However, at the current stage, the remaining functionality required to launch X11 sessions will remain in place. It is planned to remove this functionality in the next development cycle, but users will still be able to manually add SystemD-Targets to restore X11 support.

The reasoning behind this change is that X11 testing has been gradually decreasing among developers. Since 2016, the Wayland protocol has been used by default in GNOME, and some developers believe it is time to completely abandon X11 and concentrate efforts on supporting only Wayland.

Joshua Strogoba, a developer of the Budgie Desktop, expressed his opposition to the removal of X11 support from gnome-session. Strogoba mentioned that both the Budgie Desktop and Pantheon Desktop projects, which rely on GNOME technology, are currently fully supported by X11. If X11 support is removed from GNOME-SESSION, they will have to create their own forks of this component to maintain compatibility.

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