Elementary OS 8.1 Switches Over To Wayland Session By Default

Written by Michael Larabel in Operating Systems on 22 December 2025 at 01:38 PM EST. 77 Comments

Thirteen months after the release of Elementary OS 8.0, Elementary OS 8.1 is now available for this Ubuntu 24.04 LTS based Linux distribution that focuses on ease of use and usability. With Elementary OS 8.1 they have transitioned to using the Wayland session by default.

Elementary OS 8.1 is now defaulting to its Wayland-Based "Secure Session" by default compared to the default Classic Session of Elementary OS 8.0. With more third-party app developers adding native Wayland support over the past year and notably NVIDIA continuing to make graphics driver improvements for Wayland, the Elementary OS developers are now comfortable in the Wayland-based session by default. Features like fractional display scaling are also now working for Elementary OS on Wayland.

👁 Elementary OS 8.1 desktop

Elementary OS 8.1 does maintain its Classic Session support for those preferring X11 over Wayland.

Elementary OS 8.1 also brings various other desktop refinements, app improvements, initial ARM64 installation support for 64-bit ARM desktops/laptops, and various other refinements to this desktop-minded Linux distribution.

Elementary OS 8.1 can be downloaded from elementary.io.