[HN Gopher] Linux Touchpad Like MacBook Update: 2023 Progress on...
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Linux Touchpad Like MacBook Update: 2023 Progress on Smooth
Scrolling
Author : wbharding
Score : 174 points
Date : 2024-03-05 18:57 UTC (4 hours ago)
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| krunck wrote:
| That logo is just wrong.
| redundantly wrote:
| I welcome any and all improvements to touchpads on Linux and
| Windows systems. Switching from my personal MacBook to my work
| ThinkPad is like traveling back in time in terms of usability.
| dhosek wrote:
| I always thought it was strange that people went through the
| inconveniences of plugging a mouse into their laptop when there
| was a trackpad right there until I had to use a Windows system
| and saw just how bad it was.
| mrweasel wrote:
| I have an Apple Magic Trackpad, which I use with my laptop
| and external monitor. There is no way I'm going to suffer the
| ergonomic hell that is a laptop for a second longer than I
| absolutely have to. It's great to be able to take your laptop
| with you, but it's not a device suited for hours of use.
|
| It's also illegal to work on a laptop, without external
| peripherals and monitor, so you need a pointing device
| anyway.
| heleninboodler wrote:
| > There is no way I'm going to suffer the ergonomic hell
| that is a laptop for a second longer than I absolutely have
| to
|
| I agree with this, but intentionally choosing a trackpad to
| put on your desk is just accepting a portion of this hell,
| in my opinion. The trackpad is an RSI torture device to me,
| because of the way you have to hold the muscles in the back
| of your hand tense so all but one finger is a little higher
| than the others.
| danaris wrote:
| On the flip side, one of my colleagues was overjoyed when
| Apple released the Magic Trackpad, because it's worlds
| better for her to use with her arthritis than any kind of
| mouse she's tried.
| mrweasel wrote:
| For me it's either a trackpad or a trackball. I find that
| any pain comes from moving my wrist and the Magic
| Trackpad is large enough that I move my entire arm and
| not the wrist.
|
| It's great that we have options, so that people can pick
| what works for them. It is a little sad that Apple is
| pretty much the only option for an "external" trackpad
| though.
| xtracto wrote:
| I just want the integrated touchpad of my Dell Latitude 9330 to
| work decently. The libinput driver is just crap with this
| model, to the point that I have to connect an Apple Magic
| Trackpad, and _that works great_. Synaptic driver works better
| for the internal one, but apparently it is old and deprecated
| and everybody writes that we should not be using that.
| jxdxbx wrote:
| Apple has been perfecting its trackpad software since 1994, and
| it's been getting better ever since. By contrast Apple keyboards
| have gotten worse since 1995 when it discontinued the Apple
| Extended Keyboard II. We don't talk about Apple's mice.
| RIMR wrote:
| Eh, the multitouch magic mouse is pretty intuitive when you get
| used to it. Depending on what you do, it could be an excellent
| daily driver, but it does tend to have some limitations that
| can make it a non-starter...
| jxdxbx wrote:
| I can't right click on them. I guess you have to raise up
| your fingers from the left side? I just found that to be a
| dealbreaker. I've had to use them for work and I turn them
| into one-button mice with scrolling. The scrolling is
| excellent, I like low-profile mice, and I don't mind the
| charger port location. But I need to right click!
| doctor_eval wrote:
| That's so weird. I love my Magic Mouse for everything
| except gaming, and I right-click all day long without even
| thinking about it.
|
| I wonder what we do differently?
| Toutouxc wrote:
| Yes, you have to consciously lift the finger(s) from the
| left side and only touch the right side when right
| clicking. Not hard to get used to, but there's definitely
| some friction if you're coming from a normal mouse.
| brazzledazzle wrote:
| I wonder if that's the old magic mouse. I don't think I do
| that with the newer one but I remember something like that
| with the original.
| danaris wrote:
| No, that's both versions of the Magic Mouse. I have the
| most current version (in my hand right now), and if you
| want to right-click, you definitely need to lift your
| finger from the left side.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Magic mouse only has only one button, like all Apple mice.
| It relies on touch detection to fake multiple button
| support.
| asdff wrote:
| This basically makes their mice unusable for certain
| things like gaming. I had to use their mouse for a while
| and I opted to bind right click to a keyboard button
| because what do you know, most games bind aim and shoot
| to right and left click.
| RIMR wrote:
| Apple has never prioritized gaming on their devices.
| jhickok wrote:
| I like the multitouch aspect, but I hate how tiny and flat it
| is for ergonomic reasons. It's also not comfortable to raise
| your fingers up and pull them back to draw on the surface of
| a mouse.
| Toutouxc wrote:
| It's a surprisingly okay daily driver mouse if you actually
| don't use the mouse that much, like if you're writing code or
| staring at code most of the time. I daily drove it for 3
| years despite the terrible ergonomics, because I consider
| macOS almost unusable without the gestures (horizontal
| scroll, zoom, mission control, swiping between fullscreen
| apps). A few weeks ago I snapped and got the Magic Trackpad
| instead, which is a bit pricey (that's why I delayed the
| purchase), but IMO lovely to use.
| deeg wrote:
| It's not just the software. I have Ubuntu on a 2017 MBP and the
| touch pad experience is so much better than linux on anything
| else.
| heleninboodler wrote:
| I've connected an Apple Magic Trackpad (external bluetooth
| trackpad that sits on your desk) to an ubuntu machine and
| it's wonderful. There are still some software things to solve
| to get the acceleration perfect and things like scrolling
| working, but having trackpad hardware that isn't trash goes a
| really long way.
| ManuelKiessling wrote:
| Well, that's core Apple, isn't it: ,,People who are really
| serious about software should make their own hardware".
|
| A handful of stupid mice and trashcan Macs don't negate the
| fact that for a significant number of solutions, Apple nailed
| vertical integration of software and hardware, and the math
| plays out wonderfully in terms of User Experience; for these
| devices, 1 plus 1 equals 11.
| ralphc wrote:
| I just got one of these with a Quadra 650 I bought. It's good
| but it's bugging the hell out of me that the bumps are on the d
| and k keys vs. the more modern f and j.
| dhosek wrote:
| The first-gen butterfly keyboards were pretty atrocious
| (although still kind of usable). I actually like the chiclet-
| key keyboards that Apple sells nowadays.
| jxdxbx wrote:
| Yeah I don't actually want Apple to put Alps switches into a
| Macbook.
|
| I'd buy one if they did though.
| ho_schi wrote:
| Yep.
|
| The TouchPads from Apple are good. Their keyboards are bad.
| There are two important I/O devices in a laptop, the keyboard
| and the display. The keyboards from ThinkPads are near perfect
| and don't fall apart. Lenovo decided to remove the 7th row to
| acquire more space for the TouchPad. Which is a design mistake
| because TouchPads don't get better by becoming just bigger.
|
| I never use the TouchPad in my ThinkPad. I mean it is there and
| works nice. Libinput improved a lot. But there is a TrackPoint
| in the keyboard. Never leave the home row. That is where _HJKL_
| is :)
| dang wrote:
| Related. Others?
|
| _Linux Touchpad like MacBook Update: 2022 progress and new poll_
| - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34300973 - Jan 2023 (59
| comments)
|
| _Linux Touchpad Like MacBook Update: Touchpad Gestures Now
| Shipping_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29555822 - Dec
| 2021 (419 comments)
|
| _Linux Touchpad like MacBook: Touchpad gestures land to Qt, Gimp
| and X server_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27414160 -
| June 2021 (3 comments)
|
| _Linux touchpad like a Mac update: Firefox gesture support live
| in nightly_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26102894 - Feb
| 2021 (16 comments)
|
| _Q3 Linux touchpad update: Multitouch gesture test packages now
| ready_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24700537 - Oct 2020
| (136 comments)
|
| _Linux Touchpad Like a MacBook update: progress on multitouch_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23615218 - June 2020 (127
| comments)
|
| _Linux touchpad: preliminary project funding, survey results_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23235609 - May 2020 (169
| comments)
|
| _Linux touchpad like a MacBook Pro, May 2020 update_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23080435 - May 2020 (324
| comments)
|
| _Linux touchpad like a MacBook: April 2020 update_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23039515 - May 2020 (155
| comments)
|
| _Linux touchpad like a Macbook: progress and a call for help_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19485178 - March 2019 (212
| comments)
|
| _Linux touchpad like a Macbook: goal worth pursuing?_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17547817 - July 2018 (336
| comments)
|
| _Linux touchpad like a Macbook: goal worth pursuing?_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16843720 - April 2018 (1
| comment)
| al_borland wrote:
| Why does this seem like such a hard problem to solve for everyone
| that isn't Apple, when Apple seemingly solved the Trackpad over a
| decade ago?
|
| Is this it? An unknown ROI?
|
| >the highly uncertain ROI for trying to align touchpad
| acceleration has prevented us from proposing a system change to
| the default Linux settings.
|
| I can only speak for myself, but I gave up using trackpads on
| anything that isn't a MacBook many years ago. Very occasionally
| I'll try them and have always been disappointed. This prevents me
| from buying any laptop that isn't a Mac and prevents me from
| running any OS that isn't macOS on a laptop. I can't be the only
| person who prioritizes the quality and feel of input devices when
| choosing a system. If this can make or break sales and adoption,
| it seems like the ROI would be pretty good. Even if we are just
| talking about Java app, if I'm using an obviously Java app that
| feels like a clunky Java app, I'll usually find an alternative
| app that doesn't feel horrible to use.
|
| I'm glad progress is being made, but I struggle to understand why
| it's still a problem at all when it's been so good for so long
| with Apple. They even sell Bluetooth trackpads for desktops it's
| so good.
| jxdxbx wrote:
| That "ROI" comment stood out. Companies should focus on making
| quality products without tying everything to ROI. The state of
| some software on Linux is just embarrassing. No attention to
| detail. Oh and I've been using Linux since I installed
| Slackware via floppy disks.
|
| I have an external Apple touchpad and I got the Boot Camp
| drivers for it working on my gaming PC. I keep it to the left
| of my keyboard with my mouse on my right to alternate hands for
| RSI reasons and because even Windows has a lot of features that
| work best via trackpad gestures.
| freedomben wrote:
| > _Companies should focus on making quality products without
| tying everything to ROI._
|
| Unfortunately the companies prone to do that are the ones
| that go out of business. When you get the huge resources like
| the tech giants you have that luxury, but as a startup you
| don't.
| p0w3n3d wrote:
| Look and feel of MacOS is great but above all I value freedom,
| serviceability and extendability. Therefore for some long time
| I had a 16GB Mac at work (because as Tolkien or someone else
| wrote, one does not simply put additional RAM in a MacBook) and
| 24 GB old Linux laptop at home and guess on which one did I run
| my VMs faster?
|
| On the other hand Linux is still very unstable and
| uncomfortable. My Linux Mint Cinnamon was behaving unstable in
| prosaic cases, like entering PIN into my built in Wireless WAN.
|
| I would love to see MacBook open for extension and
| interoperability
| eisa01 wrote:
| Didn't Microsoft try to do something with the Surface laptops?
| Did that pan out?
|
| But yes, it's mindboggling how bad trackpads are on PCs. I've
| had corporate Lenovo T-series, X1 Carbon, and Yoga for more
| than a decade, and while things have gotten slightly better I
| still need an external mouse
|
| I may need to travel a lot by bus to my new job, and I'm now
| actually considering a Mac again even though Excel/PowerPoint
| is horrible due to missing hotkeys
| jxdxbx wrote:
| Yeah, Windows has gotten better in recent years with
| "Precision Touchpad" support. If you use an Apple Magic
| Trackpad on Windows (not supported but works on normal PCs,
| not just Boot Camp) Windows recognizes it as a Precision
| Touchpad.
| fuzzy2 wrote:
| I'd say--yes, very much so. Pointer movement is damn near
| perfect now on the Dell Precision I have at work. Clicking
| unfortunately not so much, but it's mostly bearable.
|
| Also, at 15x9 cm, it has over 5 times the area of the teensy
| trackpad on my old ThinkPad R61, which is just 5.5x4.8 cm.
| seszett wrote:
| I've been reading this kind of opinion for years, but I have
| always found the touchpad to be annoyingly slow under macOS.
|
| On the other hand, MacBooks are basically the only laptops with
| a large enough touchpad to be comfortable, I don't know if
| there's some other secret sauce Apple algorithm in the firmware
| that contributes to the experience, but to me the perfect
| combination is with a MacBook running Linux, which is what I've
| been using for about 12 years now.
| LegibleCrimson wrote:
| Likewise. There's something about MacOS's touchpad handling
| that makes it impossible to get it to feel good for me. The
| default Gnome settings on a Mac touchpad feel perfect.
| smoldesu wrote:
| KDE's defaults feel great on Magic Trackpad 2 as well, I
| prefer it with acceleration disabled. That said I'm using
| GNOME right now and it handles great on a multitouch
| trackpad.
| e12e wrote:
| I think I'll have to watch one of these people who love the
| Mac touchpad work. We are clearly not working the same way.
| Even with max speed and acceleration my MacBook air m2
| touchpad feel anemic, and cumbersome for selecting text.
|
| Fwiw I also have an apple mouse, and the touch based scroll
| feels unpredictable, and the mouse a bit slow too.
| breuleux wrote:
| When I select text with the trackpad, which isn't all that
| often, I'll usually double-click on the first word and
| drag, so I don't need to be very precise. Or triple-click
| if I need the whole paragraph. When editing text or code I
| almost always navigate and select using the keyboard, but I
| do that regardless of the pointer device I'm using.
| poyu wrote:
| I never find the speed and acceleration of the Apple
| Trackpads slow. Out of curiosity, how are you moving your
| fingers when you want the mouse to travel long distances?
| What I do is repetitions of the movement on same area of
| the trackpad , e.g. my finger never drags more than two
| inches of the surface. I also have tap to click disabled,
| and use my middle finger to move, thumb to do left click,
| and middle + ring finger for right click.
| ralphist wrote:
| I think you're using it wrong. You can travel a whole
| screen with one trackpad move if you move the finger fast
| enough. Maybe you didn't hit a high enough acceleration?
| yencabulator wrote:
| > MacBooks are basically the only laptops with a large enough
| touchpad to be comfortable
|
| This is surprisingly tough to google, but apparently at least
| some Apple laptop touchpads are 13cm wide, and my Framework
| 13" touchpad is 11.5x7.66cm (and making it any taller would
| increase the size of the whole chassis).
| cycomanic wrote:
| I also priorise input devices and because of that I would never
| get a laptop without a track point. Track pads (no matter which
| ones) are just such a poor choice of pointing device on a
| laptop, requiring one to essentially move the hand away from
| the keyboard. Unfortunately I'm pretty much locked into
| thinkpads now because all other track pointers are pretty crap.
| The again I can't really complain thinkpads are quite excellent
| compared to most other laptops.
|
| Just goes to show that people can prioritise but come to very
| different conclusions
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Trackpoints IMHO suck hard, simply because you need _a lot_
| of fine motor control to precisely operate them, the texture
| is bad, and a single "purring cat on closed lid" event can
| be enough to permanently stain the screen.
| rjh29 wrote:
| Skill issue.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| There are people on this world who legitimately have
| physical/neurological issues with fine motor control. The
| latter one just happens to include myself.
|
| Apple's touchpad is far superior - it allows for really
| precise gestures as well as high speed coarse gestures,
| just varied by the speed of moving.
| samatman wrote:
| There's a categorical difference between preferring one sort
| of input over another, and there being only one acceptable
| implementation of that category. As you indicated, if the
| keyboard _cough_ nub, let 's call it a nub, is your mouse
| pusher of choice, you pretty much own a ThinkPad, because the
| other ones suck.
|
| If you like a trackpad, you have a Mac, for the same reason.
| I don't know if it's the hardware or the firmware, might be
| some of both, but no one else ships a laptop with an
| acceptable response curve.
|
| I stick with the Apple ecosystem for a few reasons, but this
| is a big one. Even when I'm at the desktop with keyboard and
| trackball, I'll reach over to the laptop sometimes to pinch,
| or three-finger swipe, just because it's the easiest way to
| express my intention. The context switch from using the
| keyboard to using the mouse is a fairly complete one for me,
| which is to say I tend to spend long stretches doing one or
| the other. I don't place any value on staying on the home row
| while switching. I do place considerable value on proper
| pointer and scroll acceleration, reliable recognition of
| gestures, and input rejection when my palm or thumb happens
| to rest on the trackpad. Any non-Apple laptop trackpad I've
| tested completely fails one or all of these.
| yencabulator wrote:
| > If you like a trackpad, you have a Mac, for the same
| reason.
|
| Weird fanboyism. I've migrated from nubs to touchpads
| because Lenovo ruined Thinkpads, and I'm perfectly fine
| without a Mac thankyouverymuch.
| tssva wrote:
| "If you like a trackpad, you have a Mac, for the same
| reason."
|
| I have a ThinkPad with a track point and don't use it
| opting instead to use the trackpad. Before the ThinkPad I
| had a MacBook Pro. I find neither trackpad better or worse
| than the other.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| It's really annoying. I've used a couple of Chromebooks that
| had excellent trackpads so I know Apple isn't the only
| manufacturer that can manage it.
| jeffbee wrote:
| It's not a problem for Linux distributions that jettison all
| the GNU beliefs. ChromeOS has had perfect multitouch input with
| gestures for years. They ship opaque binaries from Synaptics or
| whomever and forget about the politics.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Synaptics touchpads on Linux used to support these features
| with a FLOSS driver, but this was abandoned when Linux
| distributions adopted libinput instead.
| https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Touchpad_Synaptics Note the
| amount of config options available.
| hedgehog wrote:
| It's a little more than that, they then added subpixel and
| momentum scrolling support to Chrome that bypasses X11 and
| does something custom [1]. Integration problems like this one
| that require a bunch of coordination are harder to do in open
| source land.
|
| 1. https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton/issues/244
| sandreas wrote:
| It isn't... You can see this in an open source JavaScript
| implementation of kinetic scrolling by Apple called
| PastryKit[3] using a magic number momentum * 0.9.
|
| The problem is, that on modern Linux environments, there is no
| clear responsibility for where scroll handling code belongs.
| Especially Kinetic / Inertial scrolling is handled way
| different than in macOS.
|
| There is libinput (for handling and redirecting input events)
|
| There is the display server
|
| There is the compositor
|
| There is the window manager
|
| There is the app layer (every App, like Firefox, Gimp,
|
| Currently kinetic scrolling is implemented on the App layer,
| every app has to handle the scrolling events manually to
| provide kinetic scrolling. This is not the case in macOS... the
| kinetic scrolling / rubber banding is handled within the OS.
|
| In my opinion, the scrolling code could belong into the
| compositor, so that not every app developer has to write code
| to handle the scrolling, but still prevent unwanted effects
| like kinetic scrolling transfer between windows. Additionally,
| the kinetic scrolling approach is not configurable in Gnome...
| some touchpads / screens are scrolling way to fast, some are
| too slow...
|
| I filed an issue[1] on cosmic in hope they'll get it right, but
| I don't have too high hopes that this is of much interest. On
| Fedora it works ok-ish with a little hack[2] called libinput-
| config.
|
| [1]: https://github.com/pop-os/cosmic-epoch/issues/204
|
| [2]: https://gitlab.com/warningnonpotablewater/libinput-
| config.gi...
|
| [3]: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/38619717/need-help-
| disse...
| tannhaeuser wrote:
| Worth mentioning that before libinput, the synapse driver
| handled kinetic scroll very well IMO, but AIU the developers
| removed the device-specific coefficients and other parameters
| because they said it couldn't be tested and became a mess or
| something. I remember looking at my Linux (Wayland, gnome3)
| notebook in anticipation of physical pain, at which point I
| switched to Mac OS permanently. To this date, I still don't
| understand why Linux desktop developers had to throw
| everything away and valued their grand refactorings more than
| a working desktop, especially when absolutely no new desktop
| apps are being developed anyway, but I guess that's what you
| get with a "hobby" (= developer motivation rather than demand
| driven) OS after all.
| yencabulator wrote:
| > There is the display server
|
| > There is the compositor
|
| > There is the window manager
|
| What kind of Schrodinger Way11 world is that? X11 has display
| server and window manager (and window manager doesn't deal
| with mouse movement), and Wayland has a compositor.
| ralphist wrote:
| > I filed an issue[1] on cosmic in hope they'll get it right,
| but I don't have too high hopes that this is of much
| interest.
|
| That's insane but you're right. Firefox on Ubuntu had awful
| trackpad scrolling 10 years ago and it's still bad. How do
| you make an OS where the main pointing device on half of the
| market sucks and assign that low priority?
| pmontra wrote:
| I've been using Firefox on Ubuntu from 2009 to 2022, 08.10
| to 22.04, then switched to Debian, but I never noticed any
| problem. I always used X11, a laptop, touchpad and two
| finger scrolling. Maybe is it a Wayland thing? Or it is
| very subjective.
| Analemma_ wrote:
| > How do you make an OS where the main pointing device on
| half of the market sucks and assign that low priority?
|
| Because Linux isn't "an OS". It's a kernel made by one set
| of developers, combined with a bunch of operating systems
| made by a second set of developers, which pick and choose
| compositors/window managers/etc. often made by a third set
| of developers. Each of these sets of developers are pretty
| good at solving bugs that live entirely in their "domain",
| but when there's an issue which crosses these interface
| boundaries, there is nobody to "assign priority", never
| mind actually work to fix it.
|
| (Not to mention, systemd demonstrates that trying to solve
| these kinds of pan-system problems earns you little
| gratitude but tons of vociferous hatred, so people are not
| inclined to do it.)
| vrinsd wrote:
| It has little to do with 'ROI' and much more with the way
| hardware gets made.
|
| Touchpad, touch screens and input devices are actually VERY
| difficult to get all the details right because you're dealing
| with material properties, differences that show up in
| manufacturing and even the geometry of the end user (small
| hands, big hands, wet hands, etc) among other factors.
|
| Apple takes on the responsibility of their internal hardware
| (SoCs, all embedded boards, materials) AND software (embedded,
| OS, drivers, etc). They have a culture of caring about details
| and do a tremendous amount of R&D on these related details, at
| the design and manufacturing level, before releasing their
| product.
|
| In contrast, almost all PCs are made by "integrators" (i.e.
| Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc) who take mostly off-the-shelf or semi-
| customized components, "integrate them" (I use it in quotes
| because often, as we know, products will ship with broken ACPI,
| EFI, broken drivers, etc) and put it out there. The drivers
| usually come from a hardware vendor who has little incentive to
| get "details" right, they will be lightly modified and then the
| OEM will shoehorn that into a semi-customized OS image and the
| device ships.
|
| Further, traditional vendors like HP or Dell are under pressure
| to keep churning out "the next" iteration of their HW, so they
| don't really go back and improve drivers or firmware unless
| they are forced to.
|
| On the Linux, FreeBSD and open-source side, you have an army of
| dedicated volunteers who often take highly sub-par or
| questionable hardware and work (often in the dark, or through
| reverse engineering) to make things reliable and add polish.
| The fact that things work "as well as they do" under modern
| Linux or *BSD is a miracle and mostly the result of individuals
| who care. There might be a few individuals at an OEM who care,
| but by and large the culture is not "we should make the most
| amazing product and provide documentation and support to the
| open-source community" and more "if they can get it figured
| out, good for them".
|
| A more practical detail is the fact most touchpad ICs are made
| by Alps or Synaptics. And these devices include things like
| 'palm rejection' and other advanced features that haven't been
| enabled until somewhat recently because the IC vendor might not
| have shared the details with the people working on the open-
| source drivers.
|
| You see nearly the same pattern with Android phones, how long
| before the next phone gets pushed out? Did they really fix the
| weird bugs that caused the previous phone to overheat, or the
| celluar link to drop calls unexpectedly? Fix the fact the
| satellite GPS doesn't work 1 out of 8 times?
|
| Apple isn't perfect by any means, in fact I find the most
| current versions of macOS to be VERY user hostile but sadly
| most OEMs superficially copy Apple (i.e. moving to only ONE or
| TWO USB-C ports on a modern laptop) and miss the key point of
| making hardware & software actually working well together and
| openly supporting something other than Windows.
| smoldesu wrote:
| In particular, Linux has been in the middle of a decade-long
| transition to a new display server that has split efforts for a
| while. The incumbant Xorg had a few attempts at Windows-style
| gesture libraries, but those were clunky and not at all like
| what you'd get on Mac (mostly). By the time quality solutions
| existed on x11, Wayland desktops were already shipping 1:1
| gestures a-la Mac.
|
| So basically, two separate philosophies took two roundabout
| paths to suit both their needs. It took some doing, but booting
| up KDE or GNOME in Wayland should "just work" with good
| trackpad gestures. Both desktops did a good job integrating it,
| IMO.
|
| > They even sell Bluetooth trackpads for desktops it's so good.
|
| I use one! When they make one with USB-C charging I'll start
| recommending it to others again. =)
|
| Pretty much everything besides Force Touch works, too.
| Multitouch gestures where you rotate or pinch your fingers,
| Bluetooth connectivity, it's all perfectly usable. The cherry
| on top is that KDE even has a little mouse-acceleration switch
| right in the Trackpad settings, no terminal commands required.
| I'd actually say the trackpad experience on modern Linux is
| great.
| advisedwang wrote:
| Generally Apple is only expected to make their own touchpads
| work well. So it's fewer devices to develop/test, the OS folks
| can talk to the hardware devs, see their designs and firware
| and even get to influence hardware decisions. Perhaps Apple
| puts in work for a handful of the top touchpad brands, but they
| also are incentivised to work with Apple.
|
| Compare to linux, where they have zero influence over any of
| the hardware involved, and are expected to support every single
| hardware combo possible.
| alerighi wrote:
| I think the reason is that "a good trackpad" as well as "a good
| keyboard" is not something that can be measured. Let's say that
| the cost of a good trackpad is equivalent to the cost of, let's
| say, 16 more Gb of RAM. Does the user given the same price
| choose to by the laptop with written on the box "32Gb of RAM"
| or the one that says 16? The first, because 32 is better than
| 16!
|
| Apple is different because they have a product that is not
| comparable to other PCs, or they want you to believe that, thus
| they can put the price tag they want on it. Want they spend
| 100$ on a trackpad, they can, but a PC manufacturer can't.
|
| Beside that, I think also the reason why PC manufacturer didn't
| invest on them is that most PC have Windows on them, and native
| multitouch trackpad gestures on Windows is rather a new thing
| (even on Linux, by the way, it started being supported as
| smoothly as macOS only with Wayland). Thus why have an hardware
| that supports something than in the end the OS that most people
| is using doesn't support?
| tentacleuno wrote:
| > I think the reason is that "a good trackpad" as well as "a
| good keyboard" is not something that can be measured.
|
| While I agree that these metrics can be subjective at times,
| I believe there are some fairly well-established features
| that dictate whether something is, objectively, a good
| product. In the case of a trackpad, gestures such as pinch to
| zoom are arguably an essential (for me at least), as well as
| stepless scrolling, _configurable_ pointer acceleration
| configuration, and a reasonable size.
|
| In the case of a keyboard, sure -- that's a whole other
| kettle of fish. I quite like the one on my Dell XPS, but I'm
| sure some others wouldn't.
|
| However, I think you've downplayed how much a keyboard
| matters here: for me, it makes or breaks a laptop (or a USB
| keyboard, of course). When the laptop is on, I'm spending a
| good 70% of my time _using_ the keyboard. Therefore, I would
| argue it is one of the _most important_ things to get right.
|
| I've come across good keyboards, bad ones, and ones that are
| just OK -- as an example, the more sponge-like ones on
| Logitech media keyboards do not make a good experience. In my
| experience, you have to try a keyboard to know whether you
| like it, but you can filter out plain terrible ones from
| other online reviewers' experiences.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| > In the case of a trackpad, gestures such as pinch to zoom
| are arguably an essential (for me at least), as well as
| stepless scrolling, configurable pointer acceleration
| configuration, and a reasonable size.
|
| I'm typing this on my work windows laptop, which can tick
| all these boxes!
|
| But the experience is still terrible. While the
| acceleration and such are fine enough for my use, I still
| get the feeling there's some lag between my finger movement
| and the pointer on the screen. There are things which I
| loved on my 11 yo mac which still don't exist on windows,
| like "drag hold" which only holds for a little while. On
| windows, it either doesn't hold at all, or holds forever.
| But this is purely a software issue.
|
| Funnily enough, Linux with X11 on this very same laptop
| runs circles around windows, and has none of these issues.
|
| I've never had any issue with palm detection on either OS,
| but I'm not sure if it's because it works well, or because
| of the size and position of the touchpad.
|
| However, despite the poor performance on Windows, I still
| find it usable for random "office" use, and never felt the
| need to cart around a mouse when I'm not at my desk.
| criddell wrote:
| > they can put the price tag they want on it. Want they spend
| 100$ on a trackpad, they can, but a PC manufacturer can't
|
| Why can't they?
| bheadmaster wrote:
| Because they will have a more expensive laptop with nothing
| to show for it on the label, and customers will buy cheaper
| ones with "the same specs".
|
| You can't really put "better touchpad" on a label... or can
| you?
| criddell wrote:
| Why couldn't they? Why is a trackpad different than
| better speakers or camera or battery runtime or having
| quiet fans?
| pmontra wrote:
| They should invent a measurement unit for
| trackpads/touchpads, whatever we call them. Then a grade
| 5 touchpad will be immediately perceived as better than a
| grade 4 one. Or Basic, Business, Elite. Marketing teams
| are good at that.
| tcmart14 wrote:
| I can get on board with that. Just some kind of language
| to describe a touchpad in marketing material. Without it,
| it is hard to see, without living with it, how a touch
| pad differs across two or more devices. I tend to think
| of touchpads as Mac touch pads and non-touch pads. Even
| though that is wrong.
| palata wrote:
| Because those who make that choice _believe_ (or have
| data proving it, but my feeling is that usually they just
| _believe_ ) that _users are too dumb_ to understand.
|
| That's a real problem in many situations: users are often
| under-estimated (they are also often dumb, which doesn't
| help).
| blauditore wrote:
| I'm pretty sure there's some bias present due to adaption. I'm
| very much used to some non-MB touchpad, and whenever I use a MB
| it feels worse (too slow and mushy). I feel similar pain even
| when switching operating systems on the same laptop, which
| almost certainly has to do with muscle memory. In that sense
| "getting it right" for Apple users would mean other
| manufacturers would need to exactly copy Apple's behavior, and
| probably make other users unhappy.
| jwells89 wrote:
| It sounds to me like you're feeling difference in pointer
| acceleration curves, which is something that some people are
| very sensitive to.
| ralphist wrote:
| I hated the trackpads I used before buying a macbook, and one
| of those was a high-end XPS, the best I've seen on Windows.
| The mac ones are definitely an improvement. Both hardware and
| software feel better.
| harkinian wrote:
| Mac trackpads have been top notch as far back as I can
| remember, to the iBook G3. First one I actually owned was a
| derelict 2006 MacBook someone had thrown away in 2012, and it
| was still easier to use than the modern loaner Windows laptops
| at school.
|
| And now with the modern Macs, I prefer the trackpad over a
| mouse even on a desk. Never would've thought it before.
| raggi wrote:
| multiple layers of gatekeeping, both corporate and individual.
| It's understated in the article but present: hard battle to get
| access to configuration. After that experience there's
| uncertainty if the battle to change the default is worth the
| investors level of effort.
| nerdjon wrote:
| It is an interesting thing to think about, I have friends that
| use Windows that are shocked that I willingly chose to get an
| external trackpad when I use my Mac as desktop.
|
| Even more interesting is when I see my partner try to do
| something on my Mac using a trackpad, he seems... apprehensive?
| Like he is so afraid of doing the wrong thing and for me this
| trackpad has never done something I didn't want it to do. Like
| without even thinking about it while I was re-reading this
| comment, I had fingers just resting on my trackpad.
|
| It has to be a combination of software and hardware. Likely
| shared software and hardware.
|
| Like is wrist detection on the trackpad the same as the wrist
| detection on an iPad?
|
| I believe that the 3D Touch tech that was once in the iPhone is
| the same tech that is in the track pad and the Apple Watch.
|
| We saw them use the same (or similar) tech on the iPhone home
| button when they removed the physical button.
|
| Is the multitouch functionality of the trackpad the same
| technology as in iPhones and iPads?
|
| I am genuinely curious about some of these because they feel
| like the same technology from the outside looking in and it
| would explain a lot about why it works as well as it does.
|
| And yeah on the ROI, I mean they sell a $130 external
| trackpad... that I had zero qualms about buying. Because when
| using my MacBook Pro as a laptop I heavily rely on gestures.
| Those gestures only work if the trackpad is as perfect as it
| can be. But those gestures is also software.
| asdff wrote:
| >I believe that the 3D Touch tech that was once in the iPhone
| is the same tech that is in the track pad and the Apple Watch
|
| 3D touch was only in the iphones for a few years, it was too
| expensive so they cut it in favor of the haptic touch they
| have now. The macbook trackpad is nice but honestly I prefer
| the old 2012 one they had with the actual physical button you
| could tweak the pressure of with a screwdriver. It seems a
| lot more ergonomic to have some actual give in the device
| instead of just jamming your finger onto an unmoving slab of
| glass. You don't even realize how hard it is you are pressing
| onto these things until you try testing your muscle memory
| with the computer off; its sort of alarming.
| nerdjon wrote:
| I thought 3D Touch was cut because no one seemed to know
| the functionality existed, it had a discoverability issue.
| It was kinda tacked onto iOS unlike WatchOS where it was
| part of how the entire OS was designed.
|
| Which I always found unfortunate, it had some really nice
| uses like not needing to wait when holding down for the OS
| to register and being able to pull up a context menu, slide
| up, and release to select the menu item all in one motion.
| I was sad when it was removed, but I also get it.
|
| I get the idea of a physical trackpad, and I do remember
| when that was the thing. I honestly don't even notice that
| the trackpad is not physically moving. It simulates the
| feel enough that if I didn't know it was not moving I would
| think it was. You are right it is shocking when you try to
| use it while it's off and it's like... oh right. But I just
| am not in that situation often. (However when Mac freezes
| and it "clicks" multiple times since it did not properly
| register ealrier, that's honestly kinda wild... but
| infrequent).
|
| But I also like not needing to think, I need to press on a
| specific part of the trackpad for it to properly register.
| I vividly remember only the bottom half really registering
| and the higher you went the shallower the press was.
| iknowstuff wrote:
| I'm sorry what
|
| You can adjust the pressing force required in software, and
| the glass does in fact depress under your finger. It's
| cushioned - that's how they detect pressure.
| jxdxbx wrote:
| My Apple trackpads don't click when they are powered off.
| It just feels like pressing a piece of glass.
| jandrese wrote:
| You can also detect pressure by just measuring how much
| of your finger is touching the pad. A small spot means
| light pressure, a large spot where your skin is flatted
| out more against the glass is higher pressure. In
| practice these kinds of measurements are fairly tricky so
| they don't get used very much.
| johnwalkr wrote:
| They barely deflect, strain gauges measure the deflection
| and trigger the haptic part. When off, it does feel
| pretty solid. When on, the effect is very convincing, you
| would never know it's not a button without being told. I
| had a coworker once that was ready to open up his turned-
| off macbook because he had been near sand recently and
| was convinced sand must be trapped inside the trackpad
| because it "didn't depress".
| TonyTrapp wrote:
| > Even more interesting is when I see my partner try to do
| something on my Mac using a trackpad, he seems...
| apprehensive? Like he is so afraid of doing the wrong thing
| and for me this trackpad has never done something I didn't
| want it to do. Like without even thinking about it while I
| was re-reading this comment, I had fingers just resting on my
| trackpad.
|
| I think I'll never "get" drag&drop on MacBook touchpads.
| Every time I try to do it, I accidentally open the file info,
| or the touchpad is too small to actually reach the place
| where I want to drop the file to. It is absolutely doing
| things I don't want it to do. I absolutely dread having to
| use the touchpad. (that applies to other laptops too, though)
| jxdxbx wrote:
| I love drag-and-dropping to arbitrary locations in the
| Finder using spring-loaded folders. I think it is a bit
| tricky...if you don't know the trick.
| nerdjon wrote:
| Since you mention the touchpad being too small, are you
| trying to drag and drop with one finger or multiple?
|
| What I always just do is click with my thumb and move
| around with my other fingers. As long as my thumb stays
| down it stays selected. Then just a few quick swipes with
| my finger gets whatever it is I am selecting where I want
| to go.
|
| Same works for windows and anything you click and drag.
| Admittedly there is a quirk here that I have noticed, if
| for some reason I click and try to drag with the same
| finger, I then can't switch to dragging around with a
| different finger.
|
| But personally I treat my thumb just resting no the track
| pad as my click finger and move/gesture with my other
| fingers.
| TonyTrapp wrote:
| Thanks for the hint, I will give that a try.
| prewett wrote:
| I find it easier to rest my second finger and drag with
| the third finger as I don't have to twist my hand that
| way.
| FergusArgyll wrote:
| Someone I know who's been using apple forever does the
| same and it always confuses me. Now I know why!
| data-ottawa wrote:
| I turn on the accessibility setting for drag lock as the
| first thing I do on any new macOS install, that helps a lot
| piva00 wrote:
| I always turn on 3-finger drag in any Mac I use, not once
| someone complained I enabled that option for them. I
| don't understand why it isn't the default...
| TN1ck wrote:
| Try accessibility settings and then 3 finger drag
| (switching spaces will become 4 fingers). It works really
| great and makes working in design tools feasible.
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| Doesn't putting 3 fingers ona track pad already feel so
| damn awkward?
| pmontra wrote:
| If I'll ever use a desktop again I also want an external
| touchpad and I want to place it in front of the keyboard like
| on a laptop. But you wrote trackpad. It's it the one with the
| ball? Probably not because you also wrote about multitouch.
| So, which trackpad do you use?
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| My work laptop is a macbook and I have been using it for over
| 5 years, but I still can't get a handle on it, even for a
| right click. I am not sure how people find MacOS so good. It
| just constantly goes against my intution and muscle memory.
|
| I also hate how I have to constantly turn of the mouse
| acceleration at random times using CLI.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Why does this seem like such a hard problem to solve for
| everyone that isn't Apple, when Apple seemingly solved the
| Trackpad over a decade ago?
|
| The circle of enshittification, plain and simple.
|
| Windows itself is the worst culprit, given that it took until
| (IIRC!) Windows 10 to arrive at a sensible gesture API and
| before that it was a hit-and-miss involving custom drivers for
| every model and barely any unification for gestures.
|
| That in turn led to software for Windows never even utilizing
| the benefit of multitouch, and so in turn hardware
| manufacturers weren't pushed either because why invest effort
| when it's useless anyway?
|
| On top of _that_ , hardware build quality sucks on everything
| Windows. It's almost exclusively really small (i.e. half a
| cigarette pack) touchpads, recessed 2mm or more into the
| hardware, and full plastic that stains after less than half a
| year of moderate usage. In contrast, MacBooks ship with
| touchpads literally larger than the hands of someone who has
| worked in construction, and they're made out of glass that is
| nearly flush with the casing, so no dirt or anything even has a
| chance of accumulating.
|
| (I don't even care about Linux at that point, where the hot
| mess of display drivers, window managers, UI frameworks and
| whatnot makes the complexity of "getting it right" even worse)
| jwells89 wrote:
| One thing that might make a difference is that for a long time
| now, Apple trackpads are actually touchscreens sans screen.
| They use the same multitouch hardware as iPhones and iPads,
| which of course are precise and responsive.
|
| I would guess that these are probably a bit more expensive than
| your run of the mill trackpad from e.g. Synaptics that ends up
| in the typical laptop.
| methyl wrote:
| I thought so, but then installing Asahi results in terrible
| trackpad experience even though the hardware is the same.
| jwells89 wrote:
| It's not hardware alone for certain. You need good software
| _and_ hardware, with the latter defining the upper bounds
| of how good the former can be.
|
| I've experienced the reverse with macOS running on generic
| laptops via hackintoshing. Potato trackpads are still
| potatoes under macOS.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Didn't Apple buy up a bunch of companies and patents that
| enabled their various touch control devices?
|
| Here's one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FingerWorks
|
| I remember another one for the iPod interface but don't want to
| put that much research into it.
|
| I think it comes down to patents and getting a bunch of small
| things just right... which you can do if you're Apple and you
| own the full stack, but is much more difficult supporting all
| the rest of random hardware.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| > Why does this seem like such a hard problem to solve for
| everyone that isn't Apple, when Apple seemingly solved the
| Trackpad over a decade ago?
|
| Patents?
| recursive wrote:
| What exactly is smooth scrolling? Like you press the down arrow,
| and the scroll is animated instead of instantly snapping down by
| 50 pixels?
| wildrhythms wrote:
| Using the term 'down arrow' in the context of scrolling already
| reveals you aren't the target audience for such a feature.
| recursive wrote:
| Ok, I'm not in the target audience. Fine. I would still like
| to know what it is.
| givinguflac wrote:
| From Macrumors: MacBook Pro offers an enhanced multi-touch
| trackpad supporting inertial scrolling. The feature,
| already present in similar forms on Apple's iPhone OS
| devices and the Magic Mouse, allows users to "flick" while
| scrolling as the trackpad senses the momentum of the
| gesture and smoothly scrolls through long documents and
| libraries.
| jxdxbx wrote:
| Scrolling that exactly matches your fingers and has
| "realistic" momentum.
|
| On a Mac I might scroll through an article by just sort of
| pushing it the right direction, removing my hand from the
| trackpad and then tapping to stop it at the right place.
| It's very hard to describe these things because so much is
| muscle memory.
| recursive wrote:
| I just tried it on this Windows laptop, and it worked
| exactly as you described, at least in firefox. I pretty
| much never use a touchpad though, so I don't think I ever
| saw that before. If I did though, I can imagine coming to
| rely on it pretty quickly.
| danaris wrote:
| Well, the first thing you need to know is that, as the
| _title_ of the submission clearly states, this is about
| touchpads. Not keyboards. So, y 'know, pointing out that
| the down arrow isn't super relevant isn't exactly coming
| out of nowhere.
|
| But assuming that their version of smooth scrolling does,
| in fact, work the same as Apple's, it's not even a matter
| of "it smoothly animates scrolling down by one line;" it's
| that you can scroll by individual pixels, rather than by
| lines, using the touchpad. I suspect that a certain amount
| of work also has to go into ensuring that the scroll
| animation is both smooth _and_ well-synced with the user 's
| finger motion on the touchpad, but I've never done work
| that low-level, so I'll have to defer to anyone with better
| expertise there.
| feitingen wrote:
| I think in relation to touchpads, it allows for scrolling at
| smaller increments than 50px (without animation)
| Toutouxc wrote:
| Like you two-finger scroll on the touchpad and it behaves
| exactly like a smartphone.
| hawski wrote:
| AFAIK: two fingers on the touchpad, move your fingers and
| observe how things scroll. When it is good you don't feel any
| lag and the content moves as fast or as slow (even by a single
| pixel) as your fingers are. Some inertial scrolling on top and
| that's it.
|
| Privately I am using a lot of Chromebooks and it is good in my
| opinion, but I was never wowed by Apple implementation so maybe
| I am not a good person to ask.
| jlokier wrote:
| In this context, it's about scrolling when you slide your
| fingers along a trackpad surface.
|
| It's supposed to be like "buttery smooth" scrolling on a
| smartphone. Whatever is on the screen should move with your
| fingers, with pixel accuracy and low delay, so it feels like
| you're dragging something around with your fingers.
|
| When you let go, it might continue to scroll, as if you flicked
| the object with your fingers. This is called inertial
| scrolling. At the limits, it should show your attempt to scroll
| beyond the limits somehow. Apple and Android do this
| differently for patent reasons.
|
| Of course with a touchpad the image isn't underneath your
| fingers like with a smartphone. So the scrolling amount doesn't
| have to be the same physical length as your finger movement.
| It's scaled, but it should feel similar to smartphone
| scrolling.
|
| There's no arrow.
| k8svet wrote:
| I remember this project starting. Not one single thing has
| changed that affects me as a result and I use Linux everywhere,
| daily. As far as I can tell it's a lot of small, niche work, that
| is almost completely immaterial to average users.
|
| Meanwhile there's no stop scroll events across the ecosystem. The
| single biggest win that Linux touchpad needs is stop scroll
| events.
|
| I'll bite my tongue on passing more judgement on how this effort
| has been portrayed over the past few years.
| NoThisIsMe wrote:
| There is stop scroll support in GTK4
| mappu wrote:
| Is this something like what Qt
| `QScrollerProperties::MaximumClickThroughVelocity` controls?
| It's not exactly an event, but a click-through would stop the
| scroll immediately.
| circuit10 wrote:
| The main thing I think is missing is universal support for
| kinetic/inertial scrolling, where you can fling your fingers on
| the touchpad and it keeps going after you stop. It seems to work
| with GTK but not Qt
| LorenDB wrote:
| I would find that incredibly annoying for touchpad inputs.
| Sure, I can understand kinetic input for touchscreens, but
| touchpads should be precision inputs, not the sort of thing
| where accidentally bumping two fingers on the touchpad sends
| you two pages down.
| viraptor wrote:
| It doesn't have to. That's why there are usually various
| thresholds when dealing with input devices. Like dead zones
| in controllers. Ideally you should both have inertial
| scrolling when you intend it and precise scrolling when you
| don't.
| luqtas wrote:
| also a cool extension: https://github.com/JoseExposito/touchegg
| leighleighleigh wrote:
| This fad of using an AI-generated image as the tacky doormat of
| an otherwise interesting blog post is making me pissed off
| /uncaffeinated
| asdff wrote:
| If that image is AI generated the text probably is too. We
| should start flagging these posts. I'm not interested in seeing
| model output
| carpetfizz wrote:
| Especially when it's a pregnant Tux 0.o
| distantsounds wrote:
| 2024 is the Year of the Linux Desktop! This _surely_ is a sign
| we're going to get it, right?
|
| Right?
| marcodiego wrote:
| We all know the "Year of the Linux Desktop" meme, but this
| deserves an answer.
|
| I don't think linux will overtake apple on the desktop (which
| actually includes notebook and laptops) but the current state
| has been good enough for a few years. And I'm not saying it is
| good enough only in terms of it being ready or well rounded, I
| mean in terms of marketshare. Linux has surpassed the 4% mark
| in globalstats last month and combined with chromeOS (with
| which it share many drivers) had peaks above 7% last year; it
| is very likely that the record will be broken this year. Of
| course, globalstats may be inaccurate, but I guess it is a good
| picture of the trends.
|
| This has had an interesting consequence: it is no longer a good
| idea to ignore linux on the desktop; at least not for hardware
| vendors. It's been a long time since I last saw a consolidated
| laptop with anything not working out of the box. In the
| software side, linux is still ignored by some big name vendors,
| namely adobe, microsoft and game studios. That point is still
| sad.
|
| Now, considering most developers software are multiplatform
| and, besides games, most entertainment runs on the browser, the
| last obstacle is still software. As linux' usage grows (and
| although very slow, it grows increasingly faster), vendors will
| eventually have to change their minds about linux on the
| desktop. Nevertherless I don't think that will happen before
| the end of this decade, also I don't think will see linux
| beating windows or even mac on the desktop. But, since I'm not
| dependent on any non-multiplatform software, I really don't
| care: the current situation (even in terms of marketshare and
| the way it has been continually improving) is good enough for
| me and has been for some years already.
| palata wrote:
| Also... I don't really want Linux on the Desktop to beat
| macOS/Windows. Because at that point it will be just like
| macOS/Windows, and I am not on Linux for that.
|
| I often see complaints that Linux on the Desktop is not
| enough like macOS/Windows, and I never understand: why use
| Linux then? I want Linux because of what it is now, not
| because I want a free macOS/Windows.
| marcodiego wrote:
| I think windows touchpads have also been improved after windows
| 10. Just a few years ago you could easily recognize windows user
| using notebook because they always brought a mouse with them,
| such bad was the touchpad on windows; actually it was way way
| worse than on linux.
|
| That habit seems to be fading out, so I guess the touchpads have
| also been improving for windows users recently.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Seems like calling it "Linux touchpad like MacBook" is a way to
| make sure that no one will be willing to help you other than
| people who use MacBooks, and people who use MacBooks have no need
| for this.
|
| I'm into "Linux touchpad with more tweakable and accessible
| parameters," or "Linux touchpad with better gesture support," but
| described like this, it's the type of thing I would ignore or not
| even hear about until it was an abandoned/dead project. I simply
| wouldn't realize that it's something useful for me to support. I
| exclusively use touchpads and Linux desktops, and while I've been
| frustrated at not being able to get the touchpad to feel like I
| would ideally want, if it felt like a Mac touchpad I would _hate_
| it.
|
| A bunch of parameters that you can tweak to imitate MacBooks?
| Yes, please. A switch to turn your touchpad into a Mac touchpad?
| Who cares other than people who are only forced to use Linux for
| development on the job because their preferred Mac is too nerfed
| to allow them to allow them to get their work done?
|
| As a larger statement, it seems that the strain of "What will
| make Linux catch on is making it more like Macs" has largely died
| off, largely because the people who want Macs buy Macs. It's a
| tactic as likely to be as successful as the "making Firefox
| indistinguishable from Chrome will make Chrome users switch to
| Firefox" pretense, and gets as much development support as the
| "making GIMP exactly like Photoshop" projects. The Firefox thing
| wouldn't have happened if they weren't completely funded by
| Google, and people who like Photoshop _prefer Photoshop and aren
| 't going to work on GIMP._
| LorenDB wrote:
| I'm confused what this is trying to achieve. In my four years of
| Linux usage, I have had no complaints about the touchpad[0].
|
| [0] Other than the issue where sometimes my touchpad requires an
| extra finger touch to work after resuming from suspend, but I
| have a hunch that is a hardware/firmware issue. In fact, I seem
| to recall that happening on a Windows machine once.
| dylan-m wrote:
| I find this project really confusing, as well. I'm sure sure
| this project is doing some good work, but I'd love if they take
| the time to catch us up a little bit, or maybe tweak their name
| to better reflect what it is they're actually doing. Like, for
| a modern Linux desktop on well supported modern hardware, what
| is this affecting?
|
| From my perspective as someone who is rather picky about pixel
| perfect scrolling and animations, and happily using GNOME 45
| with a Magic Touchpad, a Logitech mouse, and a Thinkpad
| touchpad, and finding nothing particularly amiss with any of
| those[0] ... I'm, um, lost.
|
| Is this all about backporting things to X11? I'm unfamiliar
| with how touchpads are over there nowadays. (Frankly that
| sounds like a waste of time to me, but if it still makes people
| happy, that's cool). Or has this project been actively
| contributing to exactly those things I'm using, and I just
| didn't realize?
|
| [0] The Magic Touchpad is definitely a better experience than
| the Thinkpad one, but they both support multi-finger gestures,
| and Gtk apps correctly do pixel-perfect scrolling with kinetics
| and all that jazz. Could maybe do a better job doing the right
| thing when I lift my finger after scrolling at low speeds. If I
| used more apps with different toolkits, I know I'd be annoyed
| by the differences in behaviour between them, so there's
| definitely something missing there. Happily, since somewhat
| recently, pretty much every app I use supportsGtk 4 apps all
| support pixel-perfect scrolling with smooth scroll wheels, too,
| which is pretty cool.
| johnthuss wrote:
| > We now have smooth scrolling support in popular Java library
| called "awt." Many Java applications use this library underneath,
| including IDEs such as Eclipse, IDEA or Rider.
|
| Eclipse doesn't use AWT, but rather uses SWT, a completely
| separate toolkit/API. That said, it's still great to hear that
| this is being improved.
| glitchc wrote:
| It's hard to guarantee a consistent experience given the large
| variation of hardware out there. Apple has the advantage of
| vertical integration, allowing them to optimally tune their
| drivers for a single device.
| sublinear wrote:
| I grew up a PC gamer in the 2000s, so developed a very strong
| preference for _no acceleration at all_ and a medium-low pointer
| speed.
|
| Apple may have great trackpad hardware, but all the software
| smoothing/acceleration/inertia is infuriating when trying to make
| precise cursor movements.
|
| I find myself constantly overcorrecting. These fractions of a
| second wasted add up in a day while trying to work. It's
| exhausting. Windows is even worse and I don't believe it's
| possible to completely get rid of the acceleration.
|
| All these skeuomorphic attempts to apply physics to the UI are
| misguided. Why not bring back those old ugly icons and the wasted
| screen space too?
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