F43 Change Proposal: Wayland-only GNOME (self-contained)

Project Discussion Change Proposals
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22

It seems you misunderstood me. I was referring to these two paths

/usr/lib/systemd/user/gnome-session-x11-services-ready.target.wants/org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.XSettings.service
/usr/lib/systemd/user/gnome-session-x11-services.target.wants/org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.XSettings.service

, not this file /usr/lib/systemd/user/org.gnome.SettingsDaemon.XSettings.service.

Once these two files

/usr/lib/systemd/user/gnome-session-x11-services-ready.target
/usr/lib/systemd/user/gnome-session-x11-services.target

disappear due to gnome-session disabling X11, those two directories

/usr/lib/systemd/user/gnome-session-x11-services-ready.target.wants/
/usr/lib/systemd/user/gnome-session-x11-services.target.wants/

also lose their reason for existence.

when that
happens it pulls in gnome-session-x11-services.target

What he said doesnā€™t align with what weā€™re doing, because after disabling X11, we no longer have this systemd target.

After disabling X11, gnome-session includes the following files:

rpm -ql gnome-session | grep /lib/systemd

/usr/lib/systemd/user/gnome-launched-.scope.d
/usr/lib/systemd/user/gnome-launched-.scope.d/override.conf
/usr/lib/systemd/user/gnome-session-failed.service
/usr/lib/systemd/user/gnome-session-failed.target
/usr/lib/systemd/user/gnome-session-initialized.target
/usr/lib/systemd/user/gnome-session-manager.target
/usr/lib/systemd/user/gnome-session-manager@.service
/usr/lib/systemd/user/gnome-session-monitor.service
/usr/lib/systemd/user/gnome-session-pre.target
/usr/lib/systemd/user/gnome-session-restart-dbus.service
/usr/lib/systemd/user/gnome-session-shutdown.target
/usr/lib/systemd/user/gnome-session-signal-init.service
/usr/lib/systemd/user/gnome-session-wayland.target
/usr/lib/systemd/user/gnome-session-wayland@.target
/usr/lib/systemd/user/gnome-session.target
/usr/lib/systemd/user/gnome-session@.target
/usr/lib/systemd/user/gnome-session@gnome.target.d
/usr/lib/systemd/user/gnome-session@gnome.target.d/gnome.session.conf
23

Iā€™ve confirmed that this is a bug and Iā€™ve filed a report upstream.

2 Likes
24

Hi! Regular user here.

While Iā€™m generally okay with getting rid of X11, as Wayland and XWayland generally does everything I need now and has fewer bugs and issues, thereā€™s still one issue Iā€™m having that is forcing me to switch to X11 once in a while. I thought Iā€™d mention it here. I can move it elsewhere if asked.

Some or all OpenGL-reliant applications seem to simply not run for me if it has to use XWayland (at least I believe these apps use XWayland, hard to say when one of them donā€™t launch). If the app allows me to choose OpenGL as the backend, the GPU is not listed for OpenGL.

Iā€™m running an Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti (and formerly an RTX 2070 Super) with the proprietary driver version 570.144 on Fedora 42. Iā€™ve had this issue for at least the last year or so. Iā€™ve tried reinstalling the drivers (though, not the full system as it sounds like a hassle) to no avail.

The apps/games that gives me this behaviour are sm64coopdx (Mario 64 decompiled) and Dolphin (Gamecube emulator). sm64coodx shows this popup when I launch it

FATAL ERROR: OpenGL 2.1+ is required. Reported version: 0.0
FATAL ERROR: OpenGL 2.1+ is required. Reported version: 0.0679Ɨ513 7.7 KB

It logs this in the console

./sm64coopdx: /lib64/libcurl.so.4: no version information available (required by ./sm64coopdx)
Saving configuration to 'sm64config-backup.txt'

(zenity:169444): Gtk-WARNING **: 17:26:17.299: Unknown key gtk-modules in /home/nina/.config/gtk-4.0/settings.ini

(zenity:169444): Adwaita-WARNING **: 17:26:17.326: Using GtkSettings:gtk-application-prefer-dark-theme with libadwaita is unsupported. Please use AdwStyleManager:color-scheme instead.
FATAL ERROR:
OpenGL 2.1+ is required.
Reported version: 0.0

Dolphin simply does not report an ā€œadapterā€ for OpenGL, but does for Vulkan.

I have encountered it with other things as well, but currently I donā€™t remember what specifically.

I donā€™t know whatā€™s going on here. My friend also has a similar setup to me but does not have this issue. This is the only remaining thing I have to switch to X11 to do.

If this can be resolved, Iā€™m in favour of this proposal as a regular user. Iā€™ve not had to switch to X11 in a year now for reasons aside from this.

Edit: For the record, Iā€™ve looked up the error messages and I cannot find anything relevant about this. Makes me wonder if Iā€™m alone in this? Do I just have to do a clean install of my system to fix it? Iā€™d rather not as Iā€™d likely have to do a lot of work to setup my system again how I want it. And I donā€™t want to take the risk of data loss.

25

Just to make sure - this does NOT affect Xwayland availability, right?? Right?

Iā€™m in favor of removing Xwayland too because it is unsafe, but this needs a little time to migrate out of.

I have one problem, though. I booted an old monitor on an old PC with Fedora 40, and I couldnā€™t get the native monitor resolution on Wayland. I could only add it using xrandr, therefore I have to use Gnome on Xorg on that PC. How come native Wayland wonā€™t support adding custom resolutions? Is that a limitation? Seems like Gnome on Xorg is the only solution in cases like this.

26

I see some warnings about parsing config files in your user profile. Have you tried creating a new clean user account?

Also, there are some environment variables that might work around some issues, depending on your system and what exactly is going wrong (e.g. MESA_GL_VERSION_OVERRIDE).

27

Would the video=ā€¦ kernel parameter be sufficient to work around that problem?

28

This has zero impact on Xwayland and X11 application support in Wayland environments.

3 Likes
29

Zero impact IRT Xwayland support.

For better or worse, lots of projects will continue to require X11 protocols for most likely longer than the actuarial tables suggest I will live (some have indicated they just do not have the resources to migrate, some are openly hostile to wayland, some are waiting for features/capabilities to become available in wayland, and some have not really formally addressed the issue at all).

30

I gave it a try, but it didnā€™t seem to do anything. I suppose it only works if youā€™re using the Mesa drivers? Iā€™m using the proprietary Nvidia drivers

Also, as for user profile, no I havenā€™t made a new one. At that point Iā€™d just reinstall the system to clean up any potential issues that a fresh install would fix. I looked into the settings file and it doesnā€™t seem like it does any harm. I suppose if all it is is deprecated, as long as I have whatever replacement, these donā€™t hurt to keep around in the case an app do read these and use them in some way (I could be wrong about that though)

1 Like
31

This change proposal has now been submitted to FESCo with ticket #3408 for voting.

To find out more, please visit our Changes Policy documentation.

32

Reply to: Issue #3408: Change: Wayland-only GNOME - fesco - Pagure.io.

The reason I support disabling X11 is that we are known as a bleeding-edge distribution, so itā€™s appropriate for us to do bleeding-edge things among the many available distributions. We donā€™t have to pretend weā€™re the only distro in the world ā€” users who choose Fedora should be prepared to accept bleeding-edge changes; otherwise, they can always choose a more conservative distribution. By disabling X11, we can also help upstream discover issues earlier, which benefits the entire desktop environment community, not just our own distribution.

In other words: we are like a testing branch, and we should serve that testing purpose ā€” and testing is always ahead of time.

1 Like
33

Will GNOME Flashback session (GNOME with Metacity and gnome-panel) continue to work after this change?

34

I feel like Iā€™m missing where the benefit is to end-users?

Xorg still has itā€™s use. And it still works. Whatā€™s the rush to remove it before it can even be claimed to be broken by something? Someone might be encouraged to fix bugs if itā€™s at least provided.

If Wayland dev was going to get any faster, it probably would have peaked when it was made a default years ago. Xorgā€™s still used by people today for a reason, vs tolerating the default :stuck_out_tongue:

35

For users of all distributions: once X11 is disabled, there will be fewer bugs caused by the absence of X11. As I said, weā€™re more like a testing branch.

We must make two things clear:

  1. X11 is going to be disabled upstream soon ā€” in other words, we are likely just six months to a year ahead.
  2. Other distributions will inevitably disable X11 as well.

So you can use those ā€œconservativeā€ distributions ā€” I expect theyā€™ll keep providing X11 for another 10 years. Fedora is not the only distribution in the world.

As for me, Iā€™ve had enough of the chaos caused by the transition from X11 to Wayland.

This is not the place to debate whether X11 or Wayland is better.

To summarize: what I support is this earlier deprecation, not the question of whether to deprecate ā€” because X11 will be deprecated eventually, and that is irreversible.

36

haha, ā€œThis is not the place to debate whether X11 or Wayland is betterā€ That is rich. You advovate removing X11, but whether Wayland is better is irrelevant? I have no intention to degrade my work environment by submitting myself to the limitations of Wayland, and I think it is absurd that you are proposing to hijack the Fedora project based on your whims.

I have no objection to removing the GNOME X11 session since I am not using the GNOME session. But Fedora is a lot bigger than the GNOME spin, even if the GNOME spin is the default spin.

37

I never said it was ā€œirrelevantā€ ā€” I have no idea where you got that from. What I said was simply that ā€œthis is not the appropriate place.ā€

Am I the king of Fedora? Do I have the authority to decide everything about Fedora? Just because I expressed my opinion, that counts as hijacking the project? Then by that logic, arenā€™t you hijacking it too?

What I support is the removal of GNOME X11 only, not other desktop environments. The fact that Iā€™m discussing it here should make that clear. Donā€™t you know how to read things in context?

38

X11 was deprecated by RHEL two years ago, and that is the stable release. It only makes sense to start removing it from Fedora at this stage, or rather itā€™s inevitable. There seems to be no broad support for it going forward.

39

Ok, but what you wrote is that you wanted to remove X11 altogether. I am glad that you misspoke.

1 Like
40

Not sure. Thatā€™s up to GNOME Flashback to figure out. It may still work with reduced functionality, but they probably need to start figuring out whether to move to Wayland or shut down upstream.

41

Who is upstream? If Fedora, the leading-edge distro somehow isnā€™t the model of upstream for other projects (that benefit from Fedoraā€™s bundling) to be following, whatā€™s going on :stuck_out_tongue:

If itā€™s GNOME: Theyā€™re only as-useful as there are mainstream distros shipping it. What is their rush to be dropping Xorg when they donā€™t even maintain an OS for other realistic people to be using?

If itā€™s any other DE: Same thing; the top DEs canā€™t provide their own mainstream OS, but can dictate an experience (that for me was questionable 8+ years) that other OSs have to follow?