Am I Running Wayland or Xorg X11?

scottalanmiller

You might know that a lot of systems are moving from Xorg's X11 to Wayland on Linux. But which are you using? Let's find out.

The command is simple:

loginctl show-session $(loginctl | head -2 | tail -n 1 | cut -d' ' -f10) -p Type

In my case, it comes out like this:

$ loginctl show-session $(loginctl | head -2 | tail -n 1 | cut -d' ' -f10) -p Type
Type=x11

If you are running Wayland, it will return "Type=Wayland".

To break this down, we are using the loginctl command to found out our session ID, then using the loginctl command again to query the type of that session.

$ loginctl
   SESSION        UID USER             SEAT             TTY             
         2       1101 scott            seat0

$ loginctl show-session 2 -p Type
Type=x11

Way easier to combine it into a single, fast line.

black3dynamite

I wonder if RHEL 8 is still planning on defaulting to Wayland when its release.

scottalanmiller

@black3dynamite said in Am I Running Wayland or Xorg X11?:

I wonder if RHEL 8 is still planning on defaulting to Wayland when its release.

Hard to say, but I'm feeling like it is unlikely.

Obsolesce

I find out by hitting the "Windows / Flag" key when my Windows VM is focused and depending on which "Start" menu opens, tells me which I'm running.

If the Win10 start menu opens in the VM, it's X11, if the Fedora menu opens, it's Wayland.

Another way to tell is if you cannot paste a screen capture into your Win10 VM, it's Wayland.

But yeah, your command would be easier lol.

black3dynamite

@scottalanmiller said in Am I Running Wayland or Xorg X11?:

@black3dynamite said in Am I Running Wayland or Xorg X11?:

I wonder if RHEL 8 is still planning on defaulting to Wayland when its release.

Hard to say, but I'm feeling like it is unlikely.

RHEL 7.5 offers tech preview of Wayland.
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=RHEL-7.5-Wayland-Tech-Here

RHEL 8 on Workstation is expecting to use Wayland session by default.
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=RHEL-8-More-Alpha-Signs

Definitely, a possibility or they could do what Canonical did with Ubuntu 18.04 and default to Xorg with an option to use Wayland session.

jmoore

Ok I admit I am totally ignorant on this topic. What is Wayland and Xorg X11?

scottalanmiller

@jmoore said in Am I Running Wayland or Xorg X11?:

Ok I admit I am totally ignorant on this topic. What is Wayland and Xorg X11?

Display servers. They are what handle converting applications into actual visible graphics in UNIX systems. Windows has one but no one ever references it because you can't replace it.

The UNIX world has always used X11 as the protocol for their display servers since the very beginning but it is ancient and updating it is considered a priority. Wayland is the new replacement for the X11 protocol.

jmoore

@scottalanmiller Ok thanks and interesting. I will have to research them some.

black3dynamite

@obsolesce said in Am I Running Wayland or Xorg X11?:

I find out by hitting the "Windows / Flag" key when my Windows VM is focused and depending on which "Start" menu opens, tells me which I'm running.

If the Win10 start menu opens in the VM, it's X11, if the Fedora menu opens, it's Wayland.

Another way to tell is if you cannot paste a screen capture into your Win10 VM, it's Wayland.

But yeah, your command would be easier lol.

At least with Fedora 28, when using Remote Viewer, the super key (Windows key) opens the Start Menu. Just make sure you allow Remote Viewer to inhibit shortcuts when asked/prompted.

hobbit666

@jmoore said in Am I Running Wayland or Xorg X11?:

@scottalanmiller Ok thanks and interesting. I will have to research them some.

Was going to ask the same thing lol