I have used many desktop environments and window managers. My experience includes most of the big names: KDE Plasma, Cinnamon, XFCE, i3, GNOME… and some of the lesser-known, or lesser-used ones, too: FVWM, dwm, Openbox, MangoWC…
And, as I recall, each was serviceable and effective. In fact, in terms of real issues, I can only cite graphical errors when I experimented with KDE Plasma while using proprietary NVIDIA drivers. Still, KDE Plasma worked well, while fulfilling many of the values that I appreciate and look for in a desktop environment. Some desktop environments fulfilled these values more than others, of course, and some managed even to fulfill values I did not know I was even looking for.
But each was serviceable and effective—reflecting the ability of modern Linux desktop tooling to often "just work" and meet the basic interfacing needs of their users.
This short essay is an analysis of two of these tools that have stood out to me in my time with Linux: GNOME and MangoWC.
As of my writing this, MangoWC's GitHub repository calls itself "practical and powerful […] dwm but wayland," which I find perfectly succinct, and true—and false, but in only the best ways.
The compositor is totally lean, like dwm (or dwl per the project page, which I haven't tried myself, to be honest). It builds and rebuilds rapidly; it absorbs few system resources; it runs snappily and rarely falters without user error; etcetera. These are the ways in which the repository description is correct. Additionally, it boasts rich out-of-the-box graphical capabilities alongside an intuitive "tags" philosophy (opposed to workspaces) and—most interestingly—a "scroller" window layout that can be dynamically used with more traditional tiling layouts, like the "monocle" layout. (This scroller layout is very much reminiscent of Niri.) These are the ways in which the repository description is (humbly, to its praise) incorrect.
Some key features that I appreciate are MangoWC's integration with Waybar (a highly effective taskbar solution for Wayland) and its ability to hot-reload keybinds and such, meaning that sessions do not have to be restarted for most configurations to be realized—a massive convenience over my past experiences with its author's yardstick, so to speak, dwm…
Anyways, all of these attributes culminate into the perfect solution for my desktop whenever my preference happens to be something more lightweight, minimalist, and do-it-yourself. This do-it-yourself philosophy that Mango appeals to is fun and efficient when I want something that simply gets out of my way and does what I need it to, which is a generally tentative ability in other desktop solutions that provide their own applications and the like.
Let me briefly clarify that I admire the raw, "suckless" minimalism that defines dwm, despite all of my coexistent appreciation for MangoWC's small improvements and optimizations over dwm for the end-user. Additionally, it's obvious that comparing MangoWC and dwm is not an apples-to-apples comparison; still, they are philosophically similar enough, and they both ultimately aim to provide an interface for window management. And in my case, the former surpasses the other in enjoyability and usability.
What if I am interested in something less lightweight and do-it-yourself? Something more "out-of-the-box" and feature-complete? Something more maximalist? After all, I never fail to find myself rotating between the two preferences depending on my mood.
Enter GNOME, which, understandably, really divides people… The entire desktop environment is opinionated from the ground up, relative to something like KDE Plasma which unequivocally offers more "sane" defaults and significantly more standard customization capabilities. And just look at me: I've only managed to write a handful of sentences about GNOME, and I've already mentioned KDE Plasma. Can you blame me? The battle between the two can be fierce; it's impossible to mention one and not the other soon afterwards. They're easily the two most popular primarily-floating-window desktop environments available. It seems like you're either in camp-GNOME or camp-KDE, and both camps want nothing more than to prove their superiority over the other. Onto the desktop environment itself rather than its community.
Maybe the "opinionated" nature of GNOME and the "sanity" of KDE Plasma's defaults deserve a reframing: GNOME isn't opinionated—it simply knows want it wants—and KDE Plasma isn't more sane—it simply appeals to conventional desktop paradigms.
GNOME's sureness in its image and "what it is" is most clear in its visual language, which is mostly defined through the GNOME HIG. The execution and consistency of these guidelines is what I find to be the most striking feature that most GNOME desktops hold over, for example, those of KDE Plasma or XFCE. The consistency among GNOME apps (which are bountiful and generally adequately robust, though I admit I tend to still prefer using the terminal) is something that other desktop environments, in my experience, can hardly hold a candle to.
GNOME's workflow is also extremely efficient once the user recognizes how to properly use it. The desktop's features encourage a keyboard-centric workflow where every major need can be met with the super key, (usually) alongside some other intuitive combination of keypresses: simply press the super key to see the overview, where the pinned apps—the most meaningful ones—can be quickly accessed, or begin typing the name of an app to quickly open it after pressing return, or access new workspaces, which are dynamically created and sorted to only the extent that benefits the user.
I'm going to recommend this video, which will more thoroughly illustrate the workflow philosophy and various abilities of GNOME that I appreciate.
I feel that, for most, the efficiency speaks for itself if you simply let it. As for myself, this workflow is far more seamless than a taskbar-centric, mouse-based workflow like you see in standard KDE Plasma or Windows desktops.
With all this said, GNOME and MangoWC obviously have their issues. GNOME regularly omits very basic, "expected" features from its desktop due to its perfectionist attitude; if a feature cannot be integrated near-perfectly within GNOME, it is unlikely to be implemented. This is a double edged sword, of course. As for MangoWC, its batteries-not-included philosophy can regularly get in the way of users before they have optimally set up and established their software roster and workflow. Being unable to take even a screenrecording in MangoWC without meddling with configuration files can be off putting to many people, in the same way that it is off putting to many people that GNOME doesn't offer a maximize button by default, or a way to easily configure the system font without external apps, or, of course, system tray icons.
Thankfully, I am not one of these many people… But I understand their pain.