Switching from Wayland to X11

Why Switch to X11?

Wayland is the default display server on most modern Linux distributions. However, certain applications -- particularly screen capture, remote desktop, and low-latency video tools -- may require X11 (Xorg) for full functionality. If you experience issues with screen sharing or video capture in VDO, switching to X11 is often the fix.

Check Your Current Display Server

Open a terminal and run:

echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE

This will return either wayland or x11.

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RHEL 8 / 9 (AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux, CentOS Stream)

GNOME (Default Desktop)

Option A: Switch at Login (Per-Session)

1. Log out to the GDM login screen.
2. Select your user.
3. Click the gear icon (bottom-right of the password field).
4. Choose GNOME on Xorg (RHEL 8) or Standard (X11 display server) (RHEL 9).
5. Enter your password and log in.

This only affects the current session. Next time you log in, you can choose again.

Option B: Force X11 System-Wide

Edit the GDM configuration:

sudo vi /etc/gdm/custom.conf

Under the [daemon] section, add or uncomment:

[daemon]
WaylandEnable=false
DefaultSession=gnome-xorg.desktop

Then restart the display manager:

sudo systemctl restart gdm

All users will now default to X11.

KDE Plasma

If you have installed KDE Plasma on RHEL/Rocky:

Per-session: At the SDDM login screen, select Plasma (X11) from the session dropdown (bottom-left).

System-wide: Create or edit the SDDM config:

sudo vi /etc/sddm.conf.d/x11.conf

[General]
DisplayServer=x11

Then restart SDDM:

sudo systemctl restart sddm

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Ubuntu (22.04 LTS, 24.04 LTS, and Later)

GNOME (Default Desktop)

Option A: Switch at Login (Per-Session)

1. Log out to the GDM login screen.
2. Select your user.
3. Click the gear icon (bottom-right).
4. Choose Ubuntu on Xorg.
5. Log in.

Option B: Force X11 System-Wide

Edit the GDM3 configuration:

sudo vi /etc/gdm3/custom.conf

Under the [daemon] section, add or uncomment:

[daemon]
WaylandEnable=false

Then restart the display manager:

sudo systemctl restart gdm3

KDE Plasma (Kubuntu)

Per-session: At the SDDM login screen, select Plasma (X11) from the session type dropdown.

System-wide:

sudo mkdir -p /etc/sddm.conf.d
sudo vi /etc/sddm.conf.d/x11.conf

[General]
DisplayServer=x11

Then restart SDDM:

sudo systemctl restart sddm

XFCE, LXQt, MATE

These desktop environments use X11 by default. No changes needed. You can verify with echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE.

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Verifying the Switch

After logging back in, confirm you are running X11:

echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE

This should output x11.

Reverting to Wayland

To switch back to Wayland:

• Per-session: Select the Wayland session option at the login screen gear icon.
• System-wide: Set WaylandEnable=true (or remove the line entirely) in the GDM/SDDM config file and restart the display manager.

Troubleshooting

No gear icon at the login screen? You may need to install the X11 session package:

• RHEL/Rocky: sudo dnf install gnome-session-xsession
• Ubuntu: sudo apt install gnome-session

Black screen after switching? Press Ctrl+Alt+F3 to switch to a text console, log in, and restart the display manager (sudo systemctl restart gdm or gdm3).

NVIDIA driver issues on Wayland? Switching to X11 typically resolves NVIDIA + Wayland problems. If you want Wayland back later, ensure nvidia-drm.modeset=1 is set in your kernel boot parameters.

Screen capture still not working? After switching to X11, restart the application that was having capture issues. Some applications cache the display server type at startup.