Since AMD and Intel GPUs already use the Wayland display server protocol as a standard session, the upcoming Ubuntu 22.04 LTS with Gnome 42 will also support this for Nvidia graphics cards. The desktop patch is responsible for switching from the X Window (X11) system to Wayland.
Session Wayland as standard for Nvidia GPUs
As first reported by linuxnews.de, the Gnome Display Manager (GDM 3) update from Gnome 42 provides the appropriate support, which sets a Wayland session for Nvidia cards with an Nvidia 510 driver or higher as standard. Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (“Jammy Jellyfish”) is expected to be released on April 21 and is based on Linux 5.15 LTS.
Linux 5.15 LTS and Gnome 42 as a base
As part of the hardware enablement stack update, there will also be an optional HWE kernel, which will likely be based on Linux 5.17. This kernel is said to support the latest hardware at that time, but it will only be updated for 6 months.
- Linux 5.15LTS *
- Optional: Linux 5.17 ** as HWE kernel
- 42- Bliss
- GTK3
*) 5-year support **) 6-month support
While users running Ubuntu 22.04 LTS based on Linux 5.15 LTS will be provided with updates and security updates for five years, users of the optional HWE kernel will be provided with the next HWE kernel after 6 months.
Replaces GBM EGL and enables Wayland
The implementation of Generic Buffer Manager (GBM), which Nvidia has long rejected in favor of its own EGLStream (EGL), enables session Wayland realization for Nvidia GPUs.
Generic Buffer Manager is based on the free libdrm library and is responsible for rendering graphics associated with the Mesa 3D graphics stack.
Ubuntu 22.04 LTS works without GTK 4 apps
Although Ubuntu 22.04 LTS is supposed to be based on Gnome 42, the operating system will do without new GTK 4 apps, such as Ubuntu 21.10 (“Impish Indri”), based on well-known GTK 3 implementations from Gnome 41. Of course, nothing stands up. On the way to manual switching to GTK 4.
In terms of apps, we’d be more conservative, avoiding GTK4, at least for the software we install by default. The plan is to use Linux 5.15 for Ubuntu 22.04 LTS but the OEM and HWE variants will get Linux 5.17 as a point.
Sebastian Butcher, Ubuntu
According to the official Ubuntu roadmap, which lists all the milestones up to the release of Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, the new LTS branch of the popular and beginner-friendly Linux distribution will be released on April 21, 2022.
Trial version, candidate version and final version
Finally, on April 7, 2022, a “kernel freeze” will follow, during which developers will stick to the final Linux kernel of the free operating system. This results in the next version of the roadmap, which ends with the release of Ubuntu 22.04 LTS on April 21, 2022.
YouTube channel “9to5Linux” has already researched Ubuntu 22.04 LTS in detail and provides corresponding impressions. PHP 8.1 and the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) 11 were also used for the first time.
