Armin's MangoWM (MangoWC) Config

My personal config for MangoWM (also known as MangoWC) - a Wayland compositor built on wlroots. This setup tries to replicate my custom DWM (Dynamic Window Manager) workflow (including most of my custom keybinds) onto Wayland, bringing that keyboard-driven tiling window experience I've been living in for MANY years to the modern world.

mangoprint.jpg

The big idea: DWM for Wayland, but make it bling

DWM is an absolute legend in the Unix world. Seriously minimalist, dynamic tiling, almost entirely keyboard-driven via Alt (Mod1) or Super (Win). It basically invented the master-stack layout - a big "master" zone on the left, a "stacking" zone on the right. DWM also gave us tags (virtual desktops you flip through with Mod+1..9), scratchpads, and a whole "do one thing well" ethos for window management.

MangoWM is the closest thing to a spiritual DWM successor on Wayland. MangoWM just tries to stay out of your way. This config pushes it into DWM-replacement territory for me: basically every keybind I've accumulated over the last ~7-8 years is here. Master resize (Alt+h/l), stack navigation (Alt+j/k), tag-based window wrangling (Alt+Shift+1..9). All that muscle memory transfers one-to-one, but now finally with those cool Wayland goodies: tearing-free rendering, per-display fractional scaling, proper hardware cursor support, seamless GPU integration, no screen-tearing.

If you're coming from Xorg and want a Wayland compositor that feels like DWM instead of i3 or Sway - then Mango might be worth an evening of fiddling.

Color scheme: NORD

Colors follow the awesome NORD palette by Arctic Ice Studio. I've been switching forth and back in terms of color palettes, but NORD is one I come back to on a regular basis.

• High contrast, but low harshness - Polar Night backgrounds + Snow Storm foregrounds = readable even after 12-hour coding sessions.
• Frost accents - the Frost biome (#8FBCBB, #88C0D0, #81A1C1, #5E81AC) gives us four distinct accent tones for focused windows, borders, UI elements.
• Aurora for attention - the Aurora biome (#BF616A, #D08770, #EBCB8B, #A3BE8C, #B48EAD) handles urgency, maximize, and split indicators without some too distracting visual clashing.

Links: Nord Homepage · Nord Docs · Nord Ports

Built on

• Fedora 44, May 2026
• MangoWM (git main)
• Wayland (wlroots-based)

Keybindings

Modifier key is Alt (a.k.a. Mod1 in X11). Every binding has its DWM equivalent listed so you can cross-reference.

General

Application launcher

Tag / workspace navigation

Tags = DWM's name for virtual desktops. 9 numbered tags plus a "view all" tag.

Moving windows between tags

Multi-monitor

Focus & stack navigation

DWM's j/k stack traversal and Tab cycling, all here.

Directional focus

For moving focus in cardinal directions - handy in floating or non-linear tiling layouts.

Moving windows in stack

Master area management

Classic DWM master-stack layout: master zone on the left, stack zone on the right.

Window resize (floating)

Gaps

Layout cycling

Floating / scratchpad

Killing windows

System control

Screenshots

Mouse

Animation & visual config

MangoWM supports per-action animations with configurable curves and durations. This config enables smooth slide transitions for window open/close and horizontal tag switching. Key parameters:

Supported layouts

The default is DWM's classic tile layout on all 9 tags, but MangoWM comes with more layouts you can flip through with Alt + , and Alt + .:

• tile - The classic DWM master-stack. Master left, stack right.
• scroller - Horizontal scrolling layout; windows laid out left-to-right with focus-on-scroll.
• grid - All windows in an equally-sized grid.
• deck - Only the focused window fully visible; the rest stack like a deck of cards (monocle with previews).
• monocle - All windows maximized; only the focused one visible; Alt+j/k cycles through them.
• center_tile - Master centered instead of left-aligned.
• vertical_tile - Master on top, stack below (classic tile flipped).
• vertical_scroller - Scrollable vertical layout with a master area.

Monitor setup

This config targets the 2x 4k 32" dual-monitor setup of my Fedora desktop machine:

Both monitors are 4K at ×ばつ fractional scaling, giving a comfy ×ばつ1440 logical resolution. The x:2560 offset on DP-1 lines things up right at scaled resolutions.

Tip: find . | less in this repo to poke around the file tree.

Requirements

• MangoWM - built from source: https://github.com/DreamMaoMao/mango/
• Wayland session - Fedora 44 (or any distro with a modern wlroots stack)
• waybar - status bar
• wofi - app launcher
• foot - terminal emulator
• swaybg - wallpaper
• grim / slurp - screenshots
• swaylock - screen locking (optional)
• xbacklight - backlight control (optional, probably only makes sense with acpilight)

Installation

Fedora

MangoWM is available via the Terra repo and a COPR:

# Terra repo (recommended)
sudo dnf install --nogpgcheck --repofrompath 'terra,https://repos.fyralabs.com/terra$releasever' terra-release
sudo dnf install mangowm
# COPR (alternative)
sudo dnf copr enable denneman/MangoWC
sudo dnf install mangowm

Arch Linux

In the AUR - stable and git variants:

yay -S mangowm # stable release
yay -S mangowm-git # git version (latest)

ArchWiki page has detailed setup guides.

Debian / Ubuntu

No official packages yet. Build from source:

sudo apt install git meson ninja-build libwayland-dev wayland-protocols \
 libinput-dev libdrm-dev libxkbcommon-dev libpixman-1-dev \
 libdisplay-info-dev libliftoff-dev hwdata libpcre2-dev libxcb-dev \
 libxcb-util-dev seatd xwayland
git clone https://github.com/DreamMaoMao/mango.git
cd mango
meson setup build --prefix=/usr --buildtype=release
ninja -C build
sudo ninja -C build install

Void Linux

Available in the main repo:

sudo xbps-install mangowc

Other distributions

Build from source (universal)

Deps: meson, ninja, wayland, wayland-protocols, libinput, libdrm, libxkbcommon, pixman, libdisplay-info, libliftoff, hwdata, seatd, pcre2, xwayland, libxcb

git clone https://github.com/DreamMaoMao/mango.git
cd mango
meson setup build --prefix=/usr --buildtype=release
ninja -C build
sudo ninja -C build install

Installing this config

git clone https://github.com/armin/mango-config.git
cd mango-config
# Symlink or copy the config to MangoWM's config directory:
# mkdir -p ~/.config/mangowm
# ln -sf "$(pwd)/config.conf" ~/.config/mangowm/config.conf

Note: Adjust paths and deps for your installation. Check the MangoWM repo for the latest build instructions.

IRC

So far I'm not aware of some IRC channel for Mango. :-( If you come across one, please let me know. Thank you.

License

MIT