GNOME 50 debuts with X11 axed, Wayland front and center

Summary

GNOME 50 is here, codenamed Tokyo after the location of the GNOME Asia Summit 2025, and the biggest change is in fact more or less invisible, unless you look for an options button on the login screen. This version is Wayland-only, and X11 support has been completely removed. Don't panic. X11 app support is still there; there is just no longer an X11 session. You can't log into GNOME 50 using X11 as the display server, locally or remotely, even if you manually install X.org. GNOME 50 itself still contains the XWayland X server, so you can still start and use X11 apps, the same as ever. The GNOME 50 login screen on Fedora 44 offers only GNOME and GNOME Classic – no X11 offering here - Click to enlarge This aside, GNOME 50 brings improved accessibility, better parental controls, and enhanced variable refresh rate and fractional scaling support. Screen-sharing now supports HDR. There are refinements to all the various applications and separate components that come with the main desktop, notably including the Files and Settings programs. It's not quite 25 years since the first version was released. GNOME 1.0 launched in March 1999, and GNOME 2.0 followed three years later. Since then it has kept quite close to a semiannual release schedule, and indeed, that schedule is what the Ubuntu release schedule was originally synchronized with. The Ubuntu 26.04 roadmap says that "Resolute Raccoon," due next month, will use GNOME 50. As this will be an LTS release, that means that the majority of Ubuntu users will be looking at GNOME 50 at least until Ubuntu 28.04 – and many for Resolute's full five-year supported lifespan. Our impression from various Linux communities is that the majority of Ubuntu users seem not to realize that other flavors even exist – most just use the default GNOME edition. The Reg FOSS desk always keeps an eye out for Ubuntu interim releases, and we've been running Ubuntu 25.10 on one of our older ThinkPads with non-upgradable Nvidia GPUs, alongside Pop!_OS ...