Wayland should not be the default in 18.04.

[kansasnoob]

I agree with cajuncoder. My few sessions with Wayland were frustrating because of the (already mentioned) stuff that didn't work. Between Wayland's issues and snappy forcefully adding folders and loop devices on my system, 17.10 definitely feels like a test release. If Wayland becomes the default in 18.04 (and a few other issues I see in 17.10), I may exhaust the entire support period for 16.04. I understand the desire to move to Wayland, but I'm getting tired of distros defaulting to unfinished software in stable releases (Every KDE release since 3, Unity, GNOME 3, etc). That's what we have unstable/testing releases for.

While Wayland (and snaps) will probably make the Linux desktop more attractive to new users, it's far from ready and should not be the default in an LTS.

About this:

I may exhaust the entire support period for 16.04

I still have about 45 out of 60 machines running Trusty (14.04) and I'm undecided if I'll just upgrade to Xenial or wait for the first point release of Bionic. I have tested Xenial again on a variety of older hardware and the original kernel (version 4.4) seems to be fairly well sorted out, but I have twice had kernel updates break USB and flash card reader I/O. Both times that happened though it was sorted out quickly - so quickly I didn't need to file a bug report

I'm really torn at the moment about some of the UI changes in GNOME - little stuff like general appearance of various apps. The functionality is still there but things just look "clunky" to me, and I'm NOT just talking about Ubuntu's implementation of GNOME. I've honestly never been so uncertain about which way to go. I'm certainly considering waiting for 20.04, or maybe a different flavor?

There are a lot of really great options. Maybe I'll need a roll of the dice to make the decision

[xmbwd]

Can someone let me know what Wayland brings to the table in terms of usability?

I find it a pain. In addition to the aforementioned restrictions on what sudo can do (seriously, that is not Wayland's decision to make), I use Linux because I can make my workstream more efficient using window tiling and setting up "put windows" (in Gnome, CCSM in Unity) to open applications in specific locations (e.g., terminal - left upper quarter; gedit - maximized left; firefox - maximized right; mail - maximized full). These settings save hours over the course of a year.

[again?]

Can someone let me know what Wayland brings to the table in terms of usability?

I find it a pain. In addition to the aforementioned restrictions on what sudo can do (seriously, that is not Wayland's decision to make), I use Linux because I can make my workstream more efficient using window tiling and setting up "put windows" (in Gnome, CCSM in Unity) to open applications in specific locations (e.g., terminal - left upper quarter; gedit - maximized left; firefox - maximized right; mail - maximized full). These settings save hours over the course of a year.

Why is Wayland better? <---- link
Stick to 16.04 until tiling with wayland is further developed.
Ubuntu 16.04 still has more than three years of support left.
By the time of the next LTS release of Bionic, things should have improved.

glen@GU17:~$ distro-info --all --fullname --days=eol
Ubuntu 4.10 "Warty Warthog" -4265
Ubuntu 5.04 "Hoary Hedgehog" -4081
Ubuntu 5.10 "Breezy Badger" -3917
Ubuntu 6.06 LTS "Dapper Drake" -3094
Ubuntu 6.10 "Edgy Eft" -3539
Ubuntu 7.04 "Feisty Fawn" -3362
Ubuntu 7.10 "Gutsy Gibbon" -3181
Ubuntu 8.04 LTS "Hardy Heron" -2427
Ubuntu 8.10 "Intrepid Ibex" -2804
Ubuntu 9.04 "Jaunty Jackalope" -2628
Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" -2440
Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" -1699
Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" -2093
Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" -1892
Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" -1699
Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" -251
Ubuntu 12.10 "Quantal Quetzal" -1327
Ubuntu 13.04 "Raring Ringtail" -1436
Ubuntu 13.10 "Saucy Salamander" -1265
Ubuntu 14.04 LTS "Trusty Tahr" 470
Ubuntu 14.10 "Utopic Unicorn" -894
Ubuntu 15.04 "Vivid Vervet" -710
Ubuntu 15.10 "Wily Werewolf" -529
Ubuntu 16.04 LTS "Xenial Xerus" 1205
Ubuntu 16.10 "Yakkety Yak" -166
Ubuntu 17.04 "Zesty Zapus" 23
Ubuntu 17.10 "Artful Aardvark" 198
Ubuntu 18.04 LTS "Bionic Beaver" 1940

[monkeybrain20122]

By the time of the next LTS release of Bionic, things should have improved.

I won't bet on it and you did not answer any of the concerns raised by others. Wayland maybe better, *eventually*, but not now and very unlikely by April from a user's perspective. It just makes no sense to default to a half baked technology without feature parity in a LTS, which is supposed to be solid and ready for production.

[again?]

I won't bet on it and you did not answer any of the concerns raised by others. Wayland maybe better, *eventually*, but not now and very unlikely by April from a user's perspective.

For those that understand the difference between wayland and xorg or need certain functionality, it shouldn't be too much of a stretch to use an xorg session.
Does it really matter if wayland is the default session?

[uRock]

Does it really matter if wayland is the default session?

Yes. A user should not have to log out and change sessions. Ever.

[QIII]

IMO, yes it does matter. The default should in any case be the one that is most likely to work. Consider a new user who comes to Ubuntu. Having no background or understanding of the Wayland/X situation, he has an issue and attempts to follow suggestions to correct it -- only to find that he can't do it.

Wayland is not ready for prime time and the poor attitude of the developers ensures that it will not be for the foreseeable future. Until they face the reality that Wayland must support what the user expects and not their own arbitrary standard of what the user should or should not need to do, we would be trapped in a world where the user experience is just the way you'd better like it.

I know of another OS that operates that way...

I suggest that using Wayland as the default will turn out to be as regrettable as Mir/Unity was in the end. Unfortunately, Canonical seems not to have learned from that experience.

Wayland is the future. Wayland needs to be available. Wayland needs to be tested and bugs reported. But it is not suitable as a default -- particularly in a flagship LTS -- any more than a concept car is suitable for the showroom floor at a dealership.

[QIII]

Yes. A user should not have to log out and change sessions. Ever.

^This.

[again?]

If there are major issues with Wayland by the time of the Bionic release, I doubt it will be default anyway.

[mastablasta]

Yes. A user should not have to log out and change sessions. Ever.

if they can even enter a session....