Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Changes Default For NVIDIA Driver Back To Using X.Org Rather Than Wayland

While back in March Ubuntu 22.04 "Jammy Jellyfish" changed the default behavior for NVIDIA's driver to use Wayland inline with Intel and Radeon graphics having used the GNOME Wayland session rather than X.Org for the past few releases, this change was reverted at the last-minute. With a launch-day SRU, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS is defaulting to using the GNOME X.Org session rather than Wayland when running the proprietary NVIDIA driver.

The past year Ubuntu has defaulted to the Wayland session when using the Intel, Radeon, and other Mesa drivers for the GNOME desktop. It's been working out there while the default for Ubuntu 21.04/21.10 with NVIDIA's driver has been to stick with the X.Org session. That was planned to change with Ubuntu 22.04 LTS now that the NVIDIA proprietary driver supports GBM and when using the latest releases their Wayland support is generally in great shape. Thus last month when the change was made for the NVIDIA driver to default to Wayland, it was a sign of the good times for Wayland...

But this week prior to Ubuntu 22.04 being released, NVIDIA requested to Ubuntu/Canonical that they change their default to X.Org on NVIDIA-only systems.

So Ubuntu's GNOME Display Manager (GDM) package was updated so that NVIDIA-only systems are back to using the GNOME X.Org session by default. The exception though is for hybrid graphics systems where there is a mix of NVIDIA and Intel/AMD GPUs, Wayland will be the default in those cases for having a better experience than X.Org. But at least the GDM log-in screen option will remain for allowing NVIDIA Linux users to opt-in to using the Wayland session if so desired.

A last-minute (launch day!) change so NVIDIA-only systems with the proprietary driver now default back to using the X.Org session rather than Wayland.

That GDM package was just uploaded on Thursday and not part of the Ubuntu 22.04 LTS release image but rather an initial update. So by default NVIDIA on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS is back to using the X.Org session but at least there is the easy log-in time option if you do want to enjoy the NVIDIA Wayland experience.