Ubuntu may start using the Wayland driver by default for Nvidia users starting with version 24.10. With Gnome 47, the drivers may be ready for this, unlike in previous releases of the OS.
The product manager of Ubuntu at Canonical writes in an update that in version 24.10 the developers mainly focused on certain parts of the Want to polish OS. The version released in April, 24.04 Noble Numbat, was another LTS release where such more experimental developments were not wise, but the developers say they have other plans for 24.10. An important one is in the Wayland display server. Gnome 47, the desktop environment of Ubuntu 24.10, should now use Wayland by default on systems with Nvidia GPUs.
Ubuntu currently already has support for Wayland, but there are still some problems with it. it is not the default display server. Ubuntu still uses Xorg on those GPUs. The makers expect that these problems have been sufficiently resolved in Gnome 47. “The list of issues has now shrunk to a length that makes us feel confident to implement it in the upcoming release and resolve any 'unknown unknowns' before the release of Ubuntu 26.04 lts,” say the developers.
Canonical also plans to experiment with enabling full disk encryption on more systems with the appropriate TPM. By the way, that is something Canonical has been wanting to do since 2022. Canonical also wants to further overhaul the Desktop installer. That was one of the biggest changes in 23.04, which Tweakers also wrote in our review. Furthermore, Canonical wants to experiment with support for third-party Debian packages in the App Center.
Much of what the company describes is still ideas and experimental features. The company does not yet dare to say whether these will actually be included in the final release in October.