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Depending on the distribution, touchpads on Linux are between unusable and bad.
False touches are expecially annoying while you're typing a paper and you palm touches the border of the touchpad.
I often disable the touchpad completely, or at least while a key is being pressed, with a few milliseconds delay.
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No, but you are probably in the minority. I have one on the Dell laptop I'm using (which also has a touchpad). Once in a while I try to use it, but I find it almost impossible control with any kind of precision. Changing the sensitivity doesn't help much. I first tried that device on the first Thinkpads that had it, back in the 90's or whenever it was. I have always had the same reaction to it. How do you use it? Is…
The Dell ones are vastly inferior to the ThinkPad ones. While I do not know the ones in the 20, the last ten or so years I worked solely with TrackPoint first under Linux now under Windows 10. Under Windows 10, there's a Mouse tab in Control Panel, there's a sensitivity slider and I found it's best to have it just one notch below fastest. The default makes me feel I am wrestling with my laptop.
I am in the market for a new laptop, so perhaps I should give them a chance. Not really for the pointers, but they do seem to be fine laptops overall.
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> The touchpad on my macbook pro is just such an amazing feature, so intuitive. So 'just right' Do you find the original scrolling mechanism, or the reversed scrolling mechanism, to be "just right"?
The original one is the reversed one. Fingers go up, content goes down. That’s wrong as anyone who has used a phone or tablet can tell you. They fixed it, so now it is indeed “just right”.
You can reverse the scroll direction on Windows with a PowerShell command:
https://superuser.com/questions/310681/inverting-direction-o...
I used to care a lot about this kind of things about two years ago when I switched from mac to linux. But to be honest, you just kind of get used to it after a while and its not really that much of a deal breaker anymore. I spend most of my time in terminals, and I use i3wm so most of my workflow doesnt involve using the touchpad at all. The only use case i have for it is when using chrome, but even so theres vimium…
I was able to write a prototype version of things like a tableview or image viewer that gets input directly from the touchpad device (that draws straight to an OpenGL texture or pixmap). The problem is that you'll never be able to integrate this with Gtk and Qt, it just doesn't fit together. And working within those two frameworks is kind of hell. Generally, gestures are not discrete, you can go halfway through a gesture and change your mind, but you'll still get graphical feedback from the UI. That's part of the joy of using the touchpad. But it's just easier to write it from scratch than to add it to Gtk or Qt.
For me personally, it's not a huge problem because I generally avoid Gtk and Qt apps if at all possible and make my own UI's, but I don't see it gaining widespread adoption so I don't know if it's worth the effort.
How is the state of touch on desktop Linux, does it work fluidly? If yes, the drivers that handle touch might be usable to improve touchpad performance.
The touchpad on my macbook pro is just such an amazing feature, so intuitive. So 'just right' ... and consider that it's a primary form of interface. Everybody should be doing this yesterday, it's one of the most obviously good things going.
> The touchpad on my macbook pro is just such an amazing feature, so intuitive. So 'just right' Do you find the original scrolling mechanism, or the reversed scrolling mechanism, to be "just right"?
The original direction made some sense when transitioning from mice with scroll wheels. (Though it is debatable whether the mouse wheel's direction was ever right.)
The current "reversed" direction makes more sense in an era of iPads, smartphones and touch screens.
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nope, i am thinking about putting an x1 carbon keyboard into a case so i can use it with my desktop :)
Something like https://support.lenovo.com/gb/en/solutions/migr-73183
The touchpad on my macbook pro is just such an amazing feature, so intuitive. So 'just right' ... and consider that it's a primary form of interface. Everybody should be doing this yesterday, it's one of the most obviously good things going.
> The touchpad on my macbook pro is just such an amazing feature, so intuitive. So 'just right' Do you find the original scrolling mechanism, or the reversed scrolling mechanism, to be "just right"?
I can’t tell if you’re referring to the present default scroll behavior or that which was default several years ago. Given that this can be changed in the System Preferences app, it’s a non-argument. It can be set to scroll in either direction.
All that said, I’ve been tremendously disappointed with the new HP laptop touchpad at my current employer. My MBA gets it so right that every shortcoming of the HP is obvious. It requires far more effort to be accurate.