How can I log into an X session on 23.10?

Question

I recently upgraded to 23.10 and seem to be stuck on Wayland.

That's a problem because I'm a Nvidia graphics card owner and for the time being that means that Wayland is still pretty ropey. The desktop is lightning fast but Baldur's Gate 3 has dropped from a smooth 100FPS to an artefact-ridden 20FPS. I think this is a recognised bug¹ ², but I'd still like to get back into a full X session with the [blind] hope it fixes my graphical issues.

However, I can't seem to find a session on the login screen that will launch me into X. Everything I've tried starts Wayland and I think that's because there's no difference between the files in /usr/share/xsessions/ and /usr/share/wayland-sessions/. Some say they're X sessions, but the Exec is identical.

I don't really know how to progress. I don't understand how this is supposed to work, how GDM3 is supposed to pick the environment. And I don't understand how to override it. Any help to push this forward would be appreciated.

Have you tried forcing GDM itself to run in X? WaylandEnable=false in /etc/gdm/custom.conf (or similar file) — muru, Oct 16 '23 at 09:42
I think you mean, /etc/gdm3/custom.conf but no, I haven't. I will now. — Oli, Oct 16 '23 at 09:45
That did the job, @muru I'm not sure if we've got something better to close this against, but Google wasn't helping me find it. You may do well to spin out an answer and I'll accept it. — Oli, Oct 16 '23 at 14:05

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 17 '23 at 03:02

If there doesn't seem to be any apparent way to start X11 sessions from GDM, one thing to try is to force GDM itself to use X11. Set the following in /etc/gdm3/custom.conf:

WaylandEnable=False

As I understand it, this causes all sessions launched from GDM to also be in X11. As an NVIDIA user myself, who recently dabbled with Wayland a bit but went back soon enough due to similar issues in gaming, this is what I do.

How can I log into an X session on 23.10?

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