In a significant change, the Mutter composite manager has removed all code supporting the X11 protocol. The decision comes in preparation for the release of GNOME 50 next spring, which will no longer support running an X server. However, the ability to run X11 applications using XWayland will remain intact.
Preparations for this transition were initiated in the release of GNOME 49 last fall when X11 support was disabled by default in gnome-session, mutter, and gnome-shell. Despite this, the code for X11 support was retained, allowing components to be reintegrated for build-time support.
Support for the X11-based GNOME session has already been discontinued in distributions such as Ubuntu 25.10, Fedora 43, and RHEL 10. Furthermore, the GTK library has deprecated the X11 backend, with plans in GTK5 to only retain Wayland support.
Notably, the Wayland session has been the default in GNOME since 2016, while the X11-based session has proven to be less reliable in tests, with lingering bugs. By removing session support for X11, maintenance efforts will be minimized, enabling resources to be redirected towards enhancing the modern graphics stack experience.