diff --git a/src/java.desktop/unix/native/libawt_xawt/xawt/XToolkit.c b/src/java.desktop/unix/native/libawt_xawt/xawt/XToolkit.c
index 5814bb6c8a4..d5f1d012355 100644
--- a/src/java.desktop/unix/native/libawt_xawt/xawt/XToolkit.c
+++ b/src/java.desktop/unix/native/libawt_xawt/xawt/XToolkit.c
@@ -150,6 +150,10 @@ JNIEXPORT jint JNICALL
 DEF_JNI_OnLoad(JavaVM *vm, void *reserved)
 {
     jvm = vm;
+
+    //Set the gtk backend to x11 on all the systems
+    putenv("GDK_BACKEND=x11");
+
     return JNI_VERSION_1_2;
 }