Talk: GNOME login screen no longer supports X.org sessions

[kparal (Kamil Páral)]

This is a discussion topic for the following Common Issue:

GNOME login screen no longer supports X.org sessions

Problem In Fedora 42, X.org (X11) support has been entirely removed from GDM, GNOME’s login manager. This means you cannot use it to start an X.org-based GNOME sesssion (or an X.org-based session of any other desktop or window manager). Cause This is not a bug, but an intentional choice by the GDM maintainer. However, it is likely to surprise some users and potentially be experienced as an ‘issue’, so we’re documenting it here. Related Issues Bugzilla report: #2358741 Workarounds You can use…

You can discuss the problem and its solutions here, but please note that debugging and technical feedback should primarily go to the issue trackers (e.g. Bugzilla) linked in the Common Issue, because that’s the place that developers watch, not here.

If there are any updates/changes/amendments for the Common Issue description, which you believe should be performed, please post it here.

[kparal (Kamil Páral)]

Please see the Common Issue for solution/workarounds:

GNOME login screen no longer supports X.org sessions

Problem In Fedora 42, X.org (X11) support has been entirely removed from GDM, GNOME’s login manager. This means you cannot use it to start an X.org-based GNOME sesssion (or an X.org-based session of any other desktop or window manager). Cause This is not a bug, but an intentional choice by the GDM maintainer. However, it is likely to surprise some users and potentially be experienced as an ‘issue’, so we’re documenting it here. Related Issues Bugzilla report: #2358741 Workarounds You can use…

[Espionage724]

This also works (post):

sudo dnf install gnome-session-xsession xorg-x11-drivers setxkbmap xhost xmodmap xorg-x11-xauth xorg-x11-xinit xrdb

• At login, switch TTY (Ctrl + Alt + F2)
• Log-in
• Type startx
• Screen lock (Win-key + auto with display suspend) works fine

[geraldosimiao (Geraldo Simião Kutz)]

If anyone wanna try lightdm as login manager, just run these commands on terminal:

• first: install lightdm and his gtk greeter sudo dnf in lightdm lightdm-gtk-greeter
• second: swap gdm for lightdm as default login manager with sudo systemctl enable lightdm.service -f

You will end with something like this

[neverknew (Nancy Hand)]

I use a Wacom tablet with a program called Stitchmastery (written in Eclipse). For some reason it only partly works under Wayland/Plasma so I’ve been using Gnome on Xorg. If Xorg is no longer going to be available, what options exist?

[kevin (Kevin Fenzi)]

Might now note that gdm is going to get X11 re-enabled for f42.

See FEDORA-2025-36e1759b84 — enhancement update for gdm — Fedora Updates System