88

Some of my applications don't work on Ubuntu 17.10 Wayland. How can I switch back to Xorg?

orschiro
  • 13,687

4 Answers4

77

When you boot your system and get to the GDM login screen you should find a cogwheel (⚙️) next to the sign in button. If you click on the cogwheel you should find an Ubuntu on Xorg option which will start an Xorg session instead of a Wayland session.

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pomsky
  • 70,557
67

If you wish to do it permanently, edit /etc/gdm3/custom.conf and uncomment the line:

#WaylandEnable=false

by removing the # in front of it.

Save the file and then on reboot you will never see the cog asking for which session to use.

EDIT: Apparently @doug beat me to this answer. I didn't see it earlier - It was in a comment that was hidden initially.

BeastOfCaerbannog
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Sam Thomas
  • 934
9

You may want to remove wayland session to prevent accidental logins.

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Your package maintainers will be proud of you if you do it as follows:

sudo mkdir /usr/share/wayland-sessions/hidden
sudo dpkg-divert --rename \
      --divert /usr/share/wayland-sessions/hidden/ubuntu.desktop \
      --add /usr/share/wayland-sessions/ubuntu.desktop

What this does is to instruct the package manager to remember a new location for the file. This has several advantages over the other answers:

  • It guarantees a future package install/upgrade won't revert your change
  • It works with other display managers (lxdm for example lists .backup entries)

  • You can revert it easily if you change your mind with:

    sudo dpkg-divert --rename --remove /usr/share/wayland-sessions/ubuntu.desktop

>

Source: https://askubuntu.com/a/500813/602695

Artyom
  • 1,803
-1

May be running app like this can help? Can someone try it? Because I don't know whether that will be helpful to others.

For example you need to run app called Putty from Wayland but it doesn't work because of font called "server:fixed" doesn't exist in Wayland, or may be it doesn't available for some reason. So you can change shortcut or run it from shell this way:

env GDK_BACKEND=x11 putty

Replace putty with something that you need. You need to set varibale exactly with env env GDK_BACKEND=x11, without env it will not work (for Putty at leased)

Found here:

Original: https://askubuntu.com/a/1402103/1586450

b0s.at.works
  • 19