> ...but with a good Wayland compositor...

Up until 2020, I didn't use screen sharing all that much, so the lack of support for that wasn't a big deal with using Wayland.

Now days though... this is a problem. I feel sorry for the folks running some Linux desktop that don't know why the option to start screen sharing just doesn't exist in various apps. I can imagine another Linux user saying "but it is right there!" to them, also not understanding why they have it but the person they're talking to does not have screen sharing.

To be fair, that's rather a problem of the applications not supporting Wayland. You can share within Xworld and Waylandworld, but not between them. I assume that's a non trivial problem and inherent to Wayland's design.

You can screenshare just fine through xdg-desktop-portal. It has nothing to do with whether the DE / compositor providing the implementation of xdp uses X or Wayland or something else, and it has nothing to do with whether the application doing the screenshare has an X window or a wayland window or any window at all.

GNOME on Wayland supports VNC ootb.

>> Pretty sure 99% of regular people would be happy if there was a desktop with GNOME 2 feature parity but with a good Wayland compositor

You mean like the ability to put things on the desktop? There's even a desktop folder, but well....

I use gnome and I agree with you.

I don't use a DE myself but I do package software that's meant to run on "normal" Linux distros and the lack of a desktop on modern Gnome is absolutely baffling. I make industrial software so these machines are really single-use so it makes sense to put shortcuts where they won't be missed by somebody who may not be super familiar with the Linux desktop (especially since said shortcut will often be used when something goes wrong and speed is of the essence).

I remember thinking "what on earth were they thinking" the first time I realized that none of the usual way of putting things on the desktop worked on modern Gnome. Absolutely baffling. Breaking such a well established convention is pure hubris in my book.

I'd be perfectly fine if this was a niche DE that you'd have to go out of your way to install but this is bloody Gnome, the de-facto standard DE for Linux. Absolute insanity.

Have you looked at MATE? https://mate-desktop.org/

Or Cinnamon:

https://projects.linuxmint.com/cinnamon/

I've been running Cinnamon on a few machines for years, and it mostly works fine, which for a Linux desktop is high praise. The file picker has thumbnails (although it only has a list view, so they're ant-size).

I haven't used MATE. My understanding is that MATE started life as Gnome 2, whereas Cinnamon started life as Gnome 3 reskinned to look like Gnome 2. Both have grown considerably from their starting points.

My desktop user experience with Mint Cinnamon was as close to delightful as I've ever had on Linux. All the GUI stuff worked without me having to fiddle around in the terminal like a "hacker", the UX was generally high-quality, and the default theming was pretty and consistent.

My overall impression was that it was definitely and surprisingly usable for non-technical people like my mom, grandma, etc. who don't use their computer for anything sophisticated but also don't have the time/energy/wherewithal to debug and configure things.

I can't speak highly enough about the Mint Cinnamon experience, and I recommend that everyone involved in the "Desktop Linux" world try it (at least in a VM) so they can get a sense of what "good defaults" actually look and feel like.

> All the GUI stuff worked without me having to fiddle around in the terminal like a "hacker"

This was also my experience.

The only customisation i've done is:

1. Moving the panel, depending on what my feelings about proper panel placement are at the time.

2. Removing all the default shortcuts, because they collide with IntelliJ and/or are useless, and defining a few of my own

3. Setting up custom compose key sequences

Removing the shortcuts was done in the UI, but i really wish i could do it in a config file instead, because it's a pain to spend ten minutes clicking around. I had to hit the command line to set up compose keys, although i think this is an X problem, not a Cinnamon problem.

And somewhat related, TDE is the KDE 3.5 of the modern era. https://trinitydesktop.org

(I say modern era; it’s more or less just recompiled. Still comes with some of the yuckiness of days gone by, like aRtsd for audio.

I've been using MATE with the arc theme for years now. It feels very modern, and the interface is remarkably refined.