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Linux touchpad like a Macbook: goal worth pursuing?

williambharding.com

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

#321

Post by 738472527784 »

acomjean wrote: post #215
738472527784 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it works and you got used to it, it is so great on the integrated display. I got so used to not leaving the home row, I get annoyed when I have to use the arrow keys. My X220 nipple unfortunately became a little unreliable. Needs calibration often (auto moving cursor) and sometimes one direction works better than others. It's annoying, especially since the touchpad is just unusable. Any suggestions? Hardware or so…

Its probably a hardware issue. I worked at IBM and they were very proud of that device that was invented there. They had a little glass display with the hardware broken out and prototypes. It works with strain gauges[1]. Thats why you can control the speed of the pointer, not just the direction. When you get used to it, its quite effective. You can pull the rubber nub off and try it, that shouldn't help but it might.…

Thanks. Maybe I get a new keyboard (new nipple) alongside some SSDs for the next 6 years to come.

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

#322

Post by ldh »

snowwrestler wrote: post #272
jeswin wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple makes the best looking consumer computer hardware, but a Thinkpad destroys it in every department except the Trackpad. Keyboard (no contest), upgradability, RAM, ruggedness, even price.

I see people say that Thinkpads are more rugged than Macbooks and have to wonder what that opinion is based on. My own experience is that they're at least on par. (unless we're talking about the specifically-engineered "toughbook" style Thinkpads) I've dropped my Macbook Air, open, from a standing height onto a tile floor (accidentally, obviously), and the only damage was a slightly bent corner of the lid. That was 3…

I've been impressed with the durability of MacBooks in the past, but sadly the "survives a fall from the top of a refrigerator without a scratch" feature has been superceded by "keyboard exposed to air, several keys stop working". They're way too flaky these days for the nice aluminum unibody to offset.

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

#324

Post by appleiigs »

curioussavage wrote: post #306

I am in the same boat as the author. This is why own machine is a chromebook too. Gallium OS (the distro with chromebook fixes) uses the driver from chromeos and it is way better. I would donate at least $100 towards this and would contribute if possible. Maybe a more technical paper on the history and current state of things would be nice too.

Chromebook trackpad is great. Closest to Macbook experience I’ve had.

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

#325

Post by ubermonkey »

unixhero wrote: post #201
ubermonkey wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoa, why? Or, more specifically, why are you not using migration from a prior Mac or from a Time Machine backup? The ease with which a Mac user can be up and running on new hardware is, to me, one of the larger advantages of the platform. I know, this being HN, that you likely have a number of FOSS tools installed; are they somehow not getting picked up properly by migration & backup? True story: we were robbed in 2…

Shit, I hope your data was encrypted

D00d. I read HN.

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

#326

Post by ubermonkey »

satsuma wrote: post #204
ubermonkey wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure it's IP that's kept Wintel makers from doing decent trackpads. I think they just didn't care until recently. I have both a 2015 13" rMBP and a 2018 Dell XPS15 on my desk. The Dell's hardware is really fantastic. Overall, it's not QUITE the equal of Cupertino, but it's easily the best Windows hardware I've seen since the glory days of the ThinkPad. The trackpad in particular, though, is just as good as th…

the xps are some damn fine machines. we give them to c-levels here and i'm always super excited to work with them and super jealous when i have to give them away.

I really kinda wonder how viable desktop Linux would be for me on this hardware.

I mean, I think the answer FOR ME is probably still "not yet," given the things that I enjoy about doing most of my computing in the Mac ecosystem, but historically the barriers for me have been twofold: hardware AND software. I suspect the Dell solves the hardware problem.

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

#327

Post by dilap »

pmontra wrote: post #163
dilap wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're definitely a special case. For me the MacBook touchpad is my favorite input method, better than even a mouse -- because it's very precise, and the gestures are very handy! Generally, most people are very fond of mac touchpads. So, I'd say from a linux strategic perspective, or the perspectie of the greater good, the answer is yes!

I'm another special case. The only good thing of the mac touchpad is pinch to zoom integrated into many applications. I really don't want gestures. Scrolling and moving the pointer on my HP laptops always worked really well. Maybe it's a HP thing. However I remeber that the same touchpad worked much better with Ubuntu 8.04 than with Windows XP. Two finger scrolling instead of scrolling along the edge, among the other…

Someone needs to make a "touchpad olympics" so we can see who is really more nimble ;-)

But yeah, these things can definitely be pretty personal. Also, you get used to one thing and it can be very jarring to use something else.

But man I've never used any PC that even felt close to me. And I used to use PC notebooks -- switching to mac was immediately a "holy shit, I'm not plugging in a mouse anymore" moment for me. I've used a couple HP notebooks but nothing recently. Maybe it's gotten better...

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

#328

Post by minhazm423 »

101km wrote: post #11

I have been using 12" MacBooks since they came out because I live out of a backpack and travel a lot. I cannot find anything comparable in terms of size/weight/battery and build quality. Especially the trackpad, nothing is remotely close. Otherwise I'd get that and put Arch on it. People complain Apple is expensive, not so sure. The TCO may actually be less because of the high resale value. It is also more convenient…

>and setup handled via a curl-to-bash of mine gets me exactly back to where I started, down to the sessions..

could you explain this exactly? i browse hacker news casually and this part is a bit over my head

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

#329

Post by abrowne »

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?

The tweaks don't always work without any issues: speakers make static or USB ports get disabled even with wireless mice, for example. Distros don't want to cause problems like this.

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

#330

Post by abrowne »

jandrese wrote: post #218
MrLeftHand wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

One baffling design decision Canonical made for 18 is defaulting some touchpads (ones without separate buttons) to "two finger click for right click", even though so many touchpads have a clicky area and even lines printed on the touchpad for right click. That's not the baffling part though, the baffling part is that they didn't put an option in the control panel to return the old behavior. You have to spin up dconf…

It's a GNOME change, not a Canonical one: http://who-t.blogspot.com/2018/04/gnome-328-uses-clickfinger...
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