Ahead of the now in-place Ubuntu 24.10 feature freeze, the Ubuntu GNOME X.Org session support was split off into its own separate binary Debian package from the main (default) Wayland session handling.

Beginning with Ubuntu 24.10, the Ubuntu on X.Org session support is now split off into its own separate package, aptly called "ubuntu-session-xsession". This is similar to what has already been pursued by Debian and other Linux distributions for splitting up the X.Org session support into a separate build. This can be useful if wanting to remove X.Org dependencies from your system or otherwise just trying to maintain a modern Wayland-minded Linux desktop without any extra legacy support or cruft. Fedora Workstation 41 for example is pursuing [1]shipping Wayland-only GNOME desktop ISOs as their default media.

The ubuntu-session is set to recommend "ubuntu-session-xsession" and thus by default for now this Ubuntu X.Org session support will continue to be found out-of-the-box for those needing to fall-back to it on their systems or otherwise just preferring the X.Org session.

This splitting of the Ubuntu on X.Org session support into ubuntu-session-xsession was made as part of [2]this GNOME-Session update for Ubuntu 24.10.



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Fedora-WS-Wayland-Only-ISOs

[2] https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-session/46.0-7ubuntu1