GNOME 49 release candidate has been released, the final testing release before the scheduled September 17 release. The published testing release is notable for reverting an earlier change that disabled the default compilation of X11 support components in the GNOME Display Manager (GDM).
The original intent of GNOME 49 was to disable X11 support in GDM by default, but leave the ability to run X11-based desktop environments and retain X11-related code to optionally bring back X11 support in distributions. The reason for bringing back X11 support in GDM is the difficulty of separating the ability to run modern X11 sessions in GDM from the use of X11 in GDM itself, such as support for XDMCP, legacy x11 sessions, and non-user x11 sessions.
The "x11-support" build option implemented to disable X11 disabled all X11 support, including the ability to run X11-based desktop environments, since it also disabled the session handling code in /usr/share/xsessions. An attempt was made to move the X11 session handling code out of the scope of the "x11-support" build option, but it failed due to interference with other X11 code and looked like a dirty hack.
Ultimately, it was decided to keep full X49 support in GDM by default in GNOME 11, but in GNOME 50, instead of disabling it by default, remove the code for X11 support, leaving only the part of it necessary to launch X11 sessions. Thus, the "x11-support" option in GNOME 50 will disable the assembly of code for launching X11 sessions in GDM and will be able to be used in distributions that use only Wayland.
Source: opennet.ru
