Wayland in Ubuntu 20.04 (IntelGPU)

I sadly do not have the choice of starting a Gnome with Wayland session when logging in (no gear icon showing).

Using a Thinkpad with integrated Intel GPU, WaylandEnable option in /etc/gdm3/custom.conf is commented.

No idea what to do, maybe someone can help?

TY

2 Answers

After doing much searching of the internet I have come up with this solution. This solution will enable Wayland even if you have proprietary NVIDIA drivers on Ubuntu 20.04.

1. Execute sudo apt install gnome-session-wayland.
2. Open /etc/gdm3/custom.conf and ensure WaylandEnable=false is commented.
3. Open /usr/lib/udev/rules.d/61-gdm.rules and comment all lines.
4. Execute sudo systemctl restart gdm3.
5. Click on the cogwheel and select GNOME or Ubuntu on Wayland.
6. Execute echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE in order to confirm you are running Wayland (output should be "wayland").

This solution can be a bit buggy, for example the Ubuntu environment took a long time to fully load in my case. In my case I am running a GTX 1050 Ti on proprietary drivers.

EDIT: Performance in games is terrible if running this solution. Would not recommend for gaming.

In my case:

1. I'm running Ubuntu 20.04.1 with NVIDIA driver metapackage from nvidia-driver-455 (open source).

2. I did not have to install the gnome-session-wayland package.

3. I commented out all lines in the /lib/udev/rules.d/61-gdm.rules file (file /usr/lib/udev/rules.d/61-gdm.rules didn't exist).

4. Rebooted the system just in case.

That fixed the problem for me.