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Linux touchpad like a Macbook: goal worth pursuing?

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Re: Linux touchpad like a Macbook: goal worth pursuing?

#181

Post by trash_panda »

MrLeftHand wrote: post #124
mkirklions wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are all talking about desktop? Ubuntu desktop is annoying IMO. Server is the only linux worth running. Windows has a superior desktop experience. Ive made serious attempts to use linux desktops since ubuntu 7 and the annoyance factor of getting things to 'work' and the hostile community is really offputting.

I feel your pain. Ubuntu Desktop was my preferred go to distro not too long ago. Using 16.10 was nice and I managed to get the touchpad working in a reasonable way with xinput. Then 18 came along and everything went to hell. All the properties changed and some even disappeared. And of course the ones missing were the ones I actually needed to make my touchpad work in a way that it was comfortable to use. After that I…

Reading this thread makes me wonder if I live in the same universe as HN.

I'm amazed at the level of exquisiteness of the requirements of the HN crowd. I mean, I've been using computers all my life and used almost every Linux, Windows and OS X systems.

I do get that Macbook touchpads are god-tier and unrivaled so far by other hardware manufacturers. That being said, I rather have my old Lenovo x220 with an external mouse. No touchpad is as good as a decent external mouse (decent != expensive, mine is $30).

If you want to see an abysmal differences between touchpads, compare a Macbook one with the Lenovo's X220 touchpad. The X220 is the worst touchpad I've ever used, but it is still my main computer and I love it.

People talk about Mac's build quality, when I think they should be referring to its industrial design, which I get is very appealing to the senses. Now, the X220 has serious build quality. You couln't break it if you wanted to, and if you do break it, almost every part is My point is the following, and as other commenter said; I think people choose Macs before they like it better, it suits their image and are willing to pay their pricetag. I know people need to justify their choices as if Macs are the only objective solution that fits their use cases, but I find this hard to believe.

I understand that everyone has its valid reasons behinds every choice they make, but what bothers me (I know it shouldn't but who cares) is when that people bash on Linux and other hardware manufacturers just because they don't LIKE that OS/computer. I don't LIKE macOS/Macs and I don't them, that doesn't mean they are not good systems. I just CHOOSE to not use them because MY reasons.

Nowadays most systems offer more than acceptable user experiences out of the box, whether its a Linux/Windows/macOS box on whatever hardware. The thing is that people get really picky and justify their decisions by diminishing other manufacturers/systems. I believe people are afraid to say "I bought a Mac because I like them! f* you!"

Re: Linux touchpad like a Macbook: goal worth pursuing?

#182

Post by dgregd »

MrLeftHand wrote: post #81

One of the main reasons I stopped using Linux is the touchpad! It is horrible out of the box experience and the insult to injury is the lack of no good user interface to even set anything. You have to screw around with libinput or xinput with zero documentation on both parts and hope you will hit a sweet spot eventually and hope that any future updates won't break it. I am way past of the tinkerer phase where I would…

> Under Windows 10 the new precision drivers are fantastic

So it would be reasonable to limit that new Linux driver to support only Windows Precision compatible touch-pads. It seems that variety of different touch-pad hardware is causing that problems with creating a good Linux driver.

Re: Linux touchpad like a Macbook: goal worth pursuing?

#183

Post by mschuster91 »

vinay427 wrote: post #171
mschuster91 wrote: post #69

What I find the biggest advantage is the hardware (as another poster here does), but not only due to its superior capabilities in gesture recognition. I have yet to find a non-Macbook touchpad which is: - decently sized: all Windows/Linux laptops I have encountered have ridiculously small touchpads, some not even a quarter of a Macbook touchpad in size. I have huge hands, tiny touchpads are awful when two fingers are…

None of your points apply to various newer Windows laptops or even laptops from years ago, such as my T450s. However, the smoothness still isn't up to par with a modern MacBook. I use the TrackPoint anyway, but the trackpad seems decent.

Of course it's anecdata, but it's still valid when I go through the local electronics supermarkets. Plastic everywhere, nothing comparable with a MacBook (no matter if on touchpad, keyboard or casing).

Re: Linux touchpad like a Macbook: goal worth pursuing?

#184

Post by jcelerier »

rayiner wrote: post #167
jcelerier wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

when using powertop on my MBP 2014 I can get 7-8 hours of battery.

What’s the catch? If powertop is so good why isnt’t it built into distros?

> If powertop is so good why isnt’t it built into distros?

well, it's usually just an `apt install` or `pacman -S` away. I don't think that distros are optimized for laptop use cases.

Re: Linux touchpad like a Macbook: goal worth pursuing?

#185

Post by cesarb »

madeofpalk wrote: post #92
isostatic wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends if you think you're moving the document, or moving the viewport. Touchscreen behaviour is touching the document and moving it up, while your view remains the same. Traditional scroll behavior is that you're moving the view of your document down while the document itself doesn't move. Either way, one method is "the original one", the other method is the opposite, or reversed, from the original method.

I don't really care either way - it's a setting so you can use what you prefer. But the default Apple 'moving the document' setting is extremely consistent with the rest of the trackpad. When you use one finger you move the cursor, not the viewport relative to the cursor. Why would it be different with two fingers?

Traditional scrolling is consistent with the arrow keys, that is, moving your fingers down on the scroll wheel or the trackpad moves in the same direction as pressing the down arrow in the keyboard. (The arrow keys traditionally move a text cursor through the document, and the scrolling happens when it hits an edge; this is why they content scrolls in the opposite direction.)

Re: Linux touchpad like a Macbook: goal worth pursuing?

#186

Post by rhodysurf »

paulsmal wrote: post #39

It's been a year now I've switched from mac to linux. Using libinput-gestures[0] was quite nice, but eventually I changed by workflow to use keyboard shortcuts more. [0] https://github.com/bulletmark/libinput-gestures

I took the work from that project and turned it into a Gnome Extension to allow for some (super basic) tweaking of trackpad gestures through a GUI. https://github.com/mpiannucci/gnome-shell-extended-gestures

Its super basic and doesnt have all the features I want it to yet cuz of time. It works well enough though and doesnt need to do any work on the actual drivers to function.

Re: Linux touchpad like a Macbook: goal worth pursuing?

#187

Post by tzahola »

peterburkimsher wrote: post #140

I'll volunteer 2 months full-time development for free, with a few conditions. - I'm looking for a job in New Zealand, Australia, or Canada. Not Seattle (sorry Bill). I'd stop job hunting to work on this, so someone else will have to find me a job. - I'd develop for the MacBook Pro 2014, because that's my hardware. Only one Linux distro (probably Ubuntu). - Weekly check-in emails (maybe twice a week). A plan set out…

Sorry for being off-topic, but I can't resist asking why on Earth would you want to port iTunes and AppleScript? Everyone I know (except the HN user actsasbuffoon) loathes iTunes, while AppleScript is just... silly, compared to other scripting languages.

Re: Linux touchpad like a Macbook: goal worth pursuing?

#188

Post by vinay427 »

mschuster91 wrote: post #183
vinay427 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of your points apply to various newer Windows laptops or even laptops from years ago, such as my T450s. However, the smoothness still isn't up to par with a modern MacBook. I use the TrackPoint anyway, but the trackpad seems decent.

Of course it's anecdata, but it's still valid when I go through the local electronics supermarkets. Plastic everywhere, nothing comparable with a MacBook (no matter if on touchpad, keyboard or casing).

I strongly prefer the quality plastic exterior with fiberglass and carbon fiber construction of my ThinkPad. It feels far sturdier than a MacBook Pro which flexes quite a bit (yes, I've had one before), it doesn't heat up like the MacBook and warm my lap, and it's far more resistant to scratches and general wear and tear in my experience. The build quality of the MacBook hinges really throws me off as well. They're actually sturdy-feeling metal on my laptop, while Apple seems to cheap out where metal is actually useful. Just some thoughts to consider. :)

Re: Linux touchpad like a Macbook: goal worth pursuing?

#189

Post by peterburkimsher »

tzahola wrote: post #187
peterburkimsher wrote: post #140

I'll volunteer 2 months full-time development for free, with a few conditions. - I'm looking for a job in New Zealand, Australia, or Canada. Not Seattle (sorry Bill). I'd stop job hunting to work on this, so someone else will have to find me a job. - I'd develop for the MacBook Pro 2014, because that's my hardware. Only one Linux distro (probably Ubuntu). - Weekly check-in emails (maybe twice a week). A plan set out…

Sorry for being off-topic, but I can't resist asking why on Earth would you want to port iTunes and AppleScript? Everyone I know (except the HN user actsasbuffoon) loathes iTunes, while AppleScript is just... silly, compared to other scripting languages.

I miss the old iTunes 10 interface, which I use as a database manager (I like smart playlists, playlist folders, and Genre > Artist > Album columns).

AppleScript because it has so many APIs. BetterTouchTool makes heavy use of it. I taught myself how to code in it when I was 13, and I still use it now.

Re: Linux touchpad like a Macbook: goal worth pursuing?

#190

Post by haspok »

MrLeftHand wrote: post #131
chupasaurus wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are more than 2 desktop environments for Linux you've tried if my guess is right (since you've tried Ubuntu). Imo KDE is light years ahead than Windows but requires to set it up for your taste.

Can KDE do something about touchpad support whist the underlying X and kernel support for the hardware is absolute rubbish? It was a while ago I used KDE, but from what I can remember there was no option to fine tune touchpad behaviour. I like that under Linux you have a freedom of choice when it comes to window managers. KDE, Gnome2-3, XFCE, Cinnamon, you name it. It's awesome to have so many tools for one problem.…

As I found it out the hard way, xinput is pretty bare and does not support the settings required to make the touchpad usable on an XPS 9343, for example. The settings for minimum and maximum acceleration are missing (and so these options are greyed out on the KDE GUI). They are defaulted to MIN and MAX respectively.

Solution: install Synaptics, open KDE panel, set both acceleration settings to a low value, enjoy.

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