If you had asked Linux users a year ago which desktop environment would keep X11 alive the longest, the answer was almost unanimous: Xfce. Famous conservative desk always moving at its own pace, truly embracing new technology when it’s completely ready and not a second before. So when the Xfce project announced that it was spending a significant portion of its community donations to fund a new Wayland compositor written from scratch in Rust, it felt like a big departure from what Xfce users were expecting. Here’s the good news for those waiting for X11: no one is going to take it away from you tomorrow, but the list of reasons to stay is getting. shorter with each passing release cycle.
Even Xfce builds for the post-X11 world
Wayland is inevitable
The Xfce project has announced the retirement of long-time core developer Brian Tarricone Install xfwl4a new Wayland composer written from scratch in Rust using the Smithay library with the aim of matching the functionality and feel of the existing xfwm4 window manager. The project is using a significant portion of its donated funds to do this, and the composer is expected to be ready around Xfce 4.22, which is expected later this year. For a project known for changing as little as possible, this is a change worth talking about.
The problem is that Xfce doesn’t release X11. The plan is to ship xfwm4 for X11 and xfwl4 for Wayland side by side and the project’s own roadmap says it’s not yet clear which release will target a full Wayland transition, or if it will happen at all. But foundational work in Xfce 4.20, such as a window abstraction layer and experimental Wayland support, shows where the time investment went. If this intentional project then spends its donation money on Wayland, I would take that signal as a bet rather than a hedge.
And Xfce is one of the last big dominoes. GNOME 50 completely removed GNOME Shell, Mutter, and GDM in March with X11 session support. This is now only for Wayland, and this version is the default desktop on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS and Fedora 44. KDE followed suit by announcing that Plasma 6.8, expected this October, will ship without the X11 session, with support for the existing session shutting down in early 2027. The Xorg server is still effectively bugfixed.
The practical reasons for staying with X11 continue to evaporate
Wayland is better on the growing road list
There used to be quite a long list of practical reasons behind staying with X11, but these continue to diminish over time. The most common cause was Nvidia. Before mid-2024, running Wayland on Nvidia’s proprietary driver meant stuttering, dropped frames, black screens, and other general woes. These issues have been largely cleaned up, with most of the worst visual issues resolved with open sync support in driver version 555. It’s still not completely flawless, but as someone using Wayland with an Nvidia card, I’ve had no issues for over a year.
Speaking of Nvidia, gaming performance was another reason to hold back, but today Wayland has caught up. HDR and VRR support solved the last two most talked about feature incompatibilities, the first of which the X11 never got and never will. Once a legitimate Wayland pain point, screen sharing and recording now work through PipeWire and desktop portals in every major app that matters. The list goes on: multi-monitor setups with fractional scaling and mixed refresh rates, indeed so It’s better in Wayland and I’ve experienced it first hand.
X11 still works and some people really need it
Wayland is still incomplete for some niche things
If you’re running a stable Xfce or Cinnamon installation on X11 today, you’ll be the first to say that nothing is broken. Xfce itself notes that ongoing concerns about Nvidia are a legitimate reason to keep X11. Some workflows don’t have a full response in Wayland. xdotool automations, screen readers, accessibility tools, some remote apps, and others aren’t exactly a dead end in Wayland, but they’re not 1:1, and if it’s not already broken, why leave?
Just because it works today doesn’t mean it will continue to be supported
Planning a move now can be a smart play
Because of the moribund community around it, the X11 will no doubt continue to work for years, but it’s the ecosystem around it that’s disappearing. Testing, development focus, software and toolkit developers’ assumptions that everyone is running it are all in question. For example, GTK 5 is said to be designed only for Wayland. Maybe it doesn’t mean much for X11 maintenance, but Ubuntu 26.04 LTS ships only Wayland GNOME to enterprises for the next five years. Image does it changes regardless of how they feel about it.
The Xfce announcement is the clearest signal, as it removes the last valid standby strategy. The unspoken plan for many X11 hosts was to have Xfce keep the lights on indefinitely, but that has just been called into question.
X11 doesn’t die tomorrow, but it’s starting to look like its days are numbered
If you’re still on X11, I’d suggest trying a Wayland session on your current distro to see what breaks in your workflow and either file it or work around it in your own schedule. Panic-hoppana a A distro for Wayland only If you trust it, it’s not a smart move right now X11-specific workflowsbut if you don’t, maybe this is the perfect excuse to dive into something completely new.
