# GNOME on Wayland

6 Hacker News commenters recommended GNOME on Wayland and 3 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 5 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** People recommend it for strong trackpad gesture support and for being faster and more carefully designed than KWin. Critics cite poor trackpad performance and monitor ordering bugs.

## Why people recommend it

- Strong trackpad gesture support (1 comments): "it has some of the best support for trackpad gestures of any Linux desktop experience I've ever tried" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46414148))
- Faster and more carefully designed than KWin (1 comments): "gnome's wayland compositor is somewhat faster and more carefully designed than kwin" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48910398))
- Fine in everyday use (1 comments): "both KDE and Gnome on Wayland are fine in my experience" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46585148))

## What people warn about

- Poor trackpad performance (1 comments): "poor trackpad performance in Gnome/Wayland" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49389335))
- Breaks monitor ordering on macOS (1 comments): "breaks monitor ordering on MacOS reliably and Gnome+Wayland frequently" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45794590))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [KDE Plasma](https://hackerapproved.com/p/kde-plasma.md): 650 recommend
- [GNOME](https://hackerapproved.com/p/gnome.md): 340 recommend
- [Xfce](https://hackerapproved.com/p/xfce.md): 183 recommend
- [COSMIC desktop](https://hackerapproved.com/p/cosmic-desktop-environment.md): 75 recommend
- [Cinnamon desktop environment](https://hackerapproved.com/p/cinnamon.md): 57 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "GNOME on Wayland", https://hackerapproved.com/p/gnome-on-wayland/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).