Linux touchpad: preliminary project funding, survey results • Hacker News Board

Re: Linux touchpad: preliminary project funding, survey results

#81

Post by wiml » Tue, May 19, 2020, 7:54 PM UTC

WalterGR wrote: post #52

viseztrance wrote: post #32

I can hardly tell the difference between my razer stealth linux touchpad and my workprovided macbook. Even based on the feedback, it seems that most people are okay with their touchpad experience and are more interested in advanced features like multitouch. Having this said, for myself this is a tough sell. I'm concerned that I would donate and I won't be able to tell the difference between this and some placebo driv…

I can hardly tell the difference between my razer stealth linux touchpad and my workprovided macbook. How much of the surface of the Linux touchpad is clickable? I.e. how much of it depresses when you press on it, vs. the MacBook? I’ve never seen a non-Apple touchpad that didn’t have a big dead zone in the back (closest to the display) 1/4 to 1/3 of the surface.

Testing my (several years old) XPS 13, perhaps the back 1/4 is noticeably harder to click than the rest, and the very back 5-7 mm is unclickable.

I have to say I've never noticed that before. I always use tap-to-click (whether on macs or non-macs) and most of the time I click using the front 1/2 of the pad anyway. If I weren't using tap-to-click the dead zone would probably bother me though.

Re: Linux touchpad: preliminary project funding, survey results

#82

Post by aloer » Tue, May 19, 2020, 8:21 PM UTC

gertrunde wrote: post #44

I'm faintly curious, how does the MacOS "Touchpad Experience" referenced in question #1 differ from the Windows one? (Or any other OS?) (Background to my ignorance: While I do (very) occasionaly use MacOS, I usually default to the terminal as it's more familiar... and probably spend most (60-70%) of my time connected to linux or unix-like systems via cli/ssh... from a Windows system.) Are we talking touch gestures or…

much much much better:

- super smooth. Scrolling and everything just feels right. They do a lot of low level software magic to make that happen. Off topic: If you ever try to reimplement a scroll view on iOS you will see how much effort is needed to make it smooth - even if you have access to all the same APIs

- biiiig trackpad. I find this especially important when I have a big external monitor plugged in. I can easily move the mouse across two screens without lifting the finger. And very good palm recognition to avoid accidental presses

- the haptic feedback is amazing. The entire surface is stiff and the feeling of a button click is done entirely in software + haptic feedback. Once you are used to it every other trackpad just feels old and cheap (same with iPhones and taptic engine actually)

- Gestures and what you can do with them (OS X spaces!) is really well done. On many other systems a gesture will only work via on/off states. On Mac you have continuous gestures (you can undo/go back at any point) and that makes a big difference in terms of how fluid and smooth interactions will feel

Re: Linux touchpad: preliminary project funding, survey results

#83

Post by tams » Tue, May 19, 2020, 8:31 PM UTC

viseztrance wrote: post #32

I can hardly tell the difference between my razer stealth linux touchpad and my workprovided macbook. Even based on the feedback, it seems that most people are okay with their touchpad experience and are more interested in advanced features like multitouch. Having this said, for myself this is a tough sell. I'm concerned that I would donate and I won't be able to tell the difference between this and some placebo driv…

What environment and config produces that result for you? I can definitely tell the difference under KDE, libinput and good old X.

Re: Linux touchpad: preliminary project funding, survey results

#84

Post by kevincox » Tue, May 19, 2020, 9:01 PM UTC

I've used a mac occasionally and there are really only two features I miss from the trackpad level: - Add a finger to click. This is very useful to be able to click without stopping dragging your finger. - The acceleration curve for pointing feels more natural. This was surprising to me because I use Linux primarily but I feel like I hit targets slightly more on MacOS.

With libinput I have found that multi-touch gestures work really well we are just missing application support. It seems that this project doesn't aim to work on applications at all so for me it seems like they are barking up the wrong tree. For example I would love to have Firefox wired up to linux three-finger swipe gestures for forward/back (and I bind down -> Scroll To Top and up -> Close tab).

Re: Linux touchpad: preliminary project funding, survey results

#85

Post by [deleted] » Tue, May 19, 2020, 9:05 PM UTC

kevincox wrote: post #84

I've used a mac occasionally and there are really only two features I miss from the trackpad level: - Add a finger to click. This is very useful to be able to click without stopping dragging your finger. - The acceleration curve for pointing feels more natural. This was surprising to me because I use Linux primarily but I feel like I hit targets slightly more on MacOS. With libinput I have found that multi-touch gest…

[deleted]

Re: Linux touchpad: preliminary project funding, survey results

#86

Post by duskwuff » Tue, May 19, 2020, 9:12 PM UTC

ubercow13 wrote: post #78

WalterGR wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can hardly tell the difference between my razer stealth linux touchpad and my workprovided macbook. How much of the surface of the Linux touchpad is clickable? I.e. how much of it depresses when you press on it, vs. the MacBook? I’ve never seen a non-Apple touchpad that didn’t have a big dead zone in the back (closest to the display) 1/4 to 1/3 of the surface.

That's a physical limitation because the touchpad hinges from the back. No new touchpad driver is going to fix that.

And the Apple touchpad doesn't hinge at all! The "click" reaction you get when you press it is simulated by a set of force sensors and an actuator that vibrates the trackpad to simulate a click.

Re: Linux touchpad: preliminary project funding, survey results

#87

Post by LeifCarrotson » Tue, May 19, 2020, 9:15 PM UTC

eth0up wrote: post #4

Perhaps the only thing other than a certain leviathan that I loathe in Linux, is the touchpad. I have butchered laptops as a result of touchpad induced madness. I've tried synclient and other tweaks to no sufferable avail. My present laptop has the touchpad removed by pliers. I used the term "madness" sincerely. I think the present situation might be eligible for a place in the wiki for Unethical Human Experimentatio…

My ThinkPad has two sets of buttons - one with a middle mouse button below the spacebar, and one with just left and right click below the trackpad that practically hangs off the bezel.

Fortunately, the trackpad flex cable only connects to the bottom pair of buttons, so unplugging the flex cable is a completely non-destructive process that leaves the trackpoint and mouse buttons completely functional and makes my laptop somewhat secure against other people trying to use it! I will admit that this non-destructive method lacks the catharsis that pliers could provide.

Re: Linux touchpad: preliminary project funding, survey results

#88

Post by aarmenaa » Tue, May 19, 2020, 9:22 PM UTC

sethhochberg wrote: post #75

gertrunde wrote: post #44

I'm faintly curious, how does the MacOS "Touchpad Experience" referenced in question #1 differ from the Windows one? (Or any other OS?) (Background to my ignorance: While I do (very) occasionaly use MacOS, I usually default to the terminal as it's more familiar... and probably spend most (60-70%) of my time connected to linux or unix-like systems via cli/ssh... from a Windows system.) Are we talking touch gestures or…

You'd think "surely a touchpad is a touchpad", but the reality for most heavy users is that Apple really does have an experience substantially better than most in this area. Large tracking surface. No dead zones, which can't be touched or tapped. Fantastic palm rejection. Gestures that work reliably, and never over or under-detect fingers. Its not really to say that the Apple trackpads are better at their best than t…

I've noticed that two-finger scrolling, which should be one of the easiest things to get right, is wrong on basically anything that's not MacOS. Windows and Linux arbitrarily insist on 3-line scrolling in a lot of apps. Even when pixel scrolling is technically available, it works poorly. It appears small movements are ignored, and then once you've hit some sort of distance threshold the scroll "jumps" to register the whole movement. There's weird delays where you need to "un-touch" the pad before you can transition from moving the cursor to scrolling. The scroll gets "dropped" after a while even though I still have two fingers on the pad.

I've seen all this across many laptops running Linux and Windows, including Macs, which leads me to believe that that the issue software.

Re: Linux touchpad: preliminary project funding, survey results

#89

Post by odiroot » Tue, May 19, 2020, 9:30 PM UTC

My god. I hope Ubuntu is not going to jump on this quickly. My current setup with Synaptics and just two manual tweaks is perfect for me.

The way MacBook touchpads work always irked me, always felt off. But maybe it's necessary for MacBooks with their enormous tachpad surfaces.

Re: Linux touchpad: preliminary project funding, survey results

#90

Post by myself248 » Tue, May 19, 2020, 9:33 PM UTC

This is still the most frustrating thing about Linux for me. I have two Thinkpads, a T460 running Windows from my employer, and a T560 running Ubuntu as my personal. Their touchpad hardware is, of course, identical. The experiences couldn't be more different.

When I first got the machine, I spent weeks fighting with the driver, trying to figure out how a single number can represent four lines on two dimensions to define a region where palm-touch should be ignored. I still haven't gotten pointer precision where I'd like it; I simply know that getting within ten pixels is the best I can hope for without infuriatingly slow rocking and coaxing my finger around. It's disappointing to say the least.

Honestly what I'd like most, is a WINE-like shim to simply let me run the Windows driver in some sort of sandbox and take its mouse-events to the Linux input system. Synaptics has clearly done the work to make the thing behave the way I'd like, and it would be the coolest thing if identical settings were equivalent and portable between machines.