End of an era? Kubuntu is removing default support for X11 in new installs

X11, the old window system whose days have long felt numbered, just saw another one of its major supporters head for the exit. Kubuntu has decided to follow its parent distro's lead, making its next release, version 25.10, a Wayland-only affair for fresh installs.

It seems many Linux developers see Wayland as the future. Just recently, Linux Mint started working to improve support for the protocol in Cinnamon, tackling lingering issues with keyboard layouts and input methods. You can even see the progress in KDE's development, where an upgrade to Wayland PiP is planned for KDE Plasma 6.5.

So what's the logic behind dropping a session that, for the most part, still works? According to Kubuntu's Rik Mills, the team wants to "rip off this sticking plaster" now, in an interim release, rather than piss off a lot of people by doing it in the next Long-Term Support version, 26.04. The developers feel that maintaining code for the aging X11 system holds back progress on security and new features that Wayland can enable more easily. Plus, supporting two separate display servers is a massive undertaking.

Of course, this change might have some people worried, but relax; all is not lost if you still need the old session. If you're running hardware that acts up, like some older NVIDIA cards, or who relies on an ancient application that doesn't play nicely with the XWayland compatibility layer, you can still get your familiar session back. Just enter the following command in your terminal:

sudo apt install plasma-session-x11

Once that command finishes, the X11 session will appear as an option on the login screen, so you can carry on as before.

As OMGUbuntu notes, not everyone in the Ubuntu family is following its lead just yet. Other official flavors like Xubuntu, Ubuntu Budgie, and Ubuntu Cinnamon are expected to keep offering an X11 session on their default installs for this cycle.

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