F36 Change: Wayland By Default with NVIDIA proprietary Driver (System-Wide Change)

[Ben Cotton]

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/WaylandByDefaultOnNVIDIA

== Summary ==
Enable Wayland sessions by default in GDM even with the NVIDIA
proprietary driver.

== Owner ==
* Name: [[User:ofourdan| Olivier Fourdan]]
* Email: <ofourdan(a)redhat.com&gt;


== Detailed Description ==
Recent updates in NVIDIA proprietary driver allow Xwayland to benefit
from hardware acceleration and X11 applications can have their
rendering hardware accelerated.

That allowed to enable Wayland sessions even when the NVIDIA
proprietary driver is used, but keeping Xorg the default in that case.

This proposal is to make Wayland by default with newer versions of the
NVIDIA proprietary driver to remain consistent with other drivers.

GDM already has a set of udev rules which check for the driver and its
version, so this would only require a tweak in the udev rules to make
Wayland session the default with the next version of the NVIDIA driver
[https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gdm/-/blob/main/data/61-gdm.rules.in].

Note that currently Xorg is also preferred in the case of multiple
GPU, this would remain the case with this proposal.

This change is just about changing the default with NVIDIA proprietary
driver on supported configurations, “GNOME on Xorg” still remains an
option, just like with other drivers.


== Benefit to Fedora ==
Fedora has changed to Wayland by default since [[Changes/Login Screen
Over Wayland|Fedora 22]], but the NVIDIA proprietary driver has been
an exception ever since (either because originally Wayland would be
disabled with NVIDIA drivers, or more recently Xorg would be used by
default).

Currently, when first installing Fedora on NVIDIA hardware, users get
Wayland by default with the Open Source "nouveau" driver, with Xorg
being an option in the login screen. If they later decide to enable
the rpmfusion repository and install the NVIDIA proprietary driver,
they get Xorg by default and Wayland as an option.

This change would make the default consistent regardless of the
driver, for single GPU systems.

== Scope ==
* Proposal owners: Tweak the gdm udev rule to enable Wayland with the
NVIDIA proprietary driver above a given version
[https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gdm/-/blob/main/data/61-gdm.rules.in#L7-17]
* Other developers: [[User:Rstrode| Ray Strode]] for reviewing the
changes in the udev rules from GDM
* Release engineering: This change doesn't affect release workflow
* Policies and guidelines: This change doesn't affect packaging guidelines
* Trademark approval: N/A (not needed for this Change)
* Alignment with Objectives: No


== Upgrade/compatibility impact ==


== How To Test ==
# Requires an NVIDIA GPU supported by the recent NVIDIA proprietary
driver and `nvidia-drm.modeset=1` set in the kernel command line to
enable KMS [http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/495.44/README/kms.html]
(rpmfusion packages for the NVIDIA driver do that automatically)
# Enable the rpmfusion “nonfree” repository to install the NVIDIA
graphics drivers
[https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/quick-docs/setup_rpmfusion/]
# Install the NVIDIA proprietary driver (and the
`xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-power` package for suspend/resume support - see
[https://rpmfusion.org/Howto/NVIDIA?highlight=%28%5CbCategoryHowto%5Cb%29#...]
and
[http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/495.44/README/powerman...]
for more details) from the rpmfusion repository
# Reboot the machine
# Ensure graphical login screen comes up
# Try to log into a "GNOME" session
# Check whether this is a "GNOME on Wayland" session (both `$DISPLAY`
and `$WAYLAND_DISPLAY` are set)
# Log out
# Try to log into a "GNOME on Xorg" session
# Check whether this is a "GNOME on Xorg" session (`$DISPLAY` is set,
`$WAYLAND_DISPLAY` is not set)


== User Experience ==
Users with NVIDIA hardware and NVIDIA proprietary driver installed
will get a Wayland session by default when selecting the "GNOME"
session in the login screen.


== Dependencies ==
This depends on the NVIDIA proprietary driver and its support for Wayland.

Typically, this proposal would change the default in a future version
of the NVIDIA driver which is not released yet.


== Contingency Plan ==
* Contingency mechanism: Revert the default to Xorg for NVIDIA driver
by reverting the changes in the udev rule shipping with GDM
* Contingency deadline: Beta Freeze
* Blocks release? No

== Documentation ==
NVIDIA's own documentation
[http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/495.44/README/]:

 * http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/495.44/README/kms.html
 * http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/495.44/README/xwayland...
 * http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/495.44/README/gbm.html





-- 
Ben Cotton
He / Him / His
Fedora Program Manager
Red Hat
TZ=America/Indiana/Indianapolis