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The Framework Laptop

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Re: The Framework Laptop

#921

Post by breatheoften »

zimpenfish wrote: post #716
bscphil wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

XPS trackpads have always been number one, from the very beginning. I'm working with a 10 year old laptop and its trackpad has performed flawlessly and is superior to any MacBook I've ever used (but especially older ones). My XPS has the advantage of two physical buttons for left and right click. They require just the right amount of force to press (like a slightly softer mouse button with deeper travel). It makes dr…

> Trying to hold down the giant button (which takes quite a bit of force) while trying to drag your finger... ugh. It's miserable. Not wishing to detract from your personal experience but "quite a bit of force" is at odds to mine - on this M1 MBP, it takes less force to activate the trackpad click than it does to activate a keypress. And once you've clicked, you can use a second figure to drag; no need to try and dra…

Another comment regarding the click and drag behavior.

One thing I would definitely expect a recent migrant to apple trackpads to experience as negative would be "force click". The apple trackpads sense force in some analogue way and if you push hard enough you can activate another action called force click. It's ridiculously easy to activate on accident when holding click while dragging -- but this "feature" can be turned off (and probably should be for most people I'd wager).

I've never tried using the middle finger for dragging -- seems awkward but i'll give it a try ... won't that activate the two finger drag operation?

Re: The Framework Laptop

#922

Post by [deleted] »

coldtea wrote: post #846
rfoo wrote: post #835

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but then why don't we have awesome Linux trackpad drivers for Intel Macbooks?

Isn't there a 1-2 year old project that claims to have made great trackpad driver behavior in Linux? I think this is the case I remember: https://bill.harding.blog/2020/04/26/linux-touchpad-like-a-m...

[deleted]

Re: The Framework Laptop

#924

Post by zimpenfish »

breatheoften wrote: post #921
zimpenfish wrote: post #716

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Trying to hold down the giant button (which takes quite a bit of force) while trying to drag your finger... ugh. It's miserable. Not wishing to detract from your personal experience but "quite a bit of force" is at odds to mine - on this M1 MBP, it takes less force to activate the trackpad click than it does to activate a keypress. And once you've clicked, you can use a second figure to drag; no need to try and dra…

Another comment regarding the click and drag behavior. One thing I would definitely expect a recent migrant to apple trackpads to experience as negative would be "force click". The apple trackpads sense force in some analogue way and if you push hard enough you can activate another action called force click. It's ridiculously easy to activate on accident when holding click while dragging -- but this "feature" can be…

> won't that activate the two finger drag operation?

No, because you've clicked which makes it a different operation than just two fingers scrolling or zooming.

Re: The Framework Laptop

#925

Post by neop1x »

google234123 wrote: post #385
ThinkBeat wrote: post #369

I really want to buy hardware that allows easy repair. That goes for laptops and cellphone in particular. Laptops used to allow easy replacement of battery, memory and hardrives at the very least. All that sacrificed in the name of making the devices "thinner" and the design more attractive. What bits me most is that a lot of younger friends I have, have no such expectations. Talk to them about a cellphone the answer…

I'm pretty sure Apple goes far more for the green agenda than the old PC makers ever did - even taking into account the tiny savings you get from the few people that upgraded or repaired their laptops in the past.

Nah, not anymore. SSD and RAM are soldered on the motherboard in newer Macbooks [1]. And you can't even swap parts in iPhone 12 unless you reprogram their EEPROMs [2].

[1] https://www.ifixit.com/laptop-repairability [2] https://youtu.be/FY7DtKMBxBw

Re: The Framework Laptop

#926

Post by breatheoften »

SeanLuke wrote: post #510
reaperducer wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

my point is that most tasks are either ① best done in a good text editing / development environment Your point is only correct if you replace the word "most" with "my." The fact that trackpads are hugely popular indicates that your needs are not typical, and you should not impose your choices upon others with different needs. would be better done with a specialized non-keyboard, non-trackpad input device Show me a be…

> Show me a better multi-purpose input device that I can use to rotate objects on a screen. Or zoom into a specific object without affecting other objects on a screen. I agree with you in general, but a trackpad is in fact really, truly horrible for these tasks. As humans we are designed to rotate objects precisely, and that design does not involve using two fingers to slide about arbitrary locations on a flat plane.…

How about a little sphere or oriented volume that magnetically levitates out of its cubby when the device is powered on -- and maybe the field could be varied to simulate different amounts of resistance ...

Re: The Framework Laptop

#927

Post by neop1x »

gwbas1c wrote: post #584
smoldesu wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Side note, I think you'd be pleasantly surprised with how far Linux has come. I recently returned to it for the first time in a decade, and it's pretty remarkable how mature the operating system is. Almost all of my "essential" apps have native versions (eg. Matrix, Spotify, Discord, Steam) and the ones that don't can be pretty easily emulated through Wine. It only took 2 weeks of playing around with KDE on my Macboo…

Which distro?

I have been happily using KDE on Arch Linux for many years as well.

Just two times I saw what seemed to be an xorg glitch which required powering off and on the display output via xrandr over SSH.

And MTP (android file transfer) implementation under KDE is not ideal, it sometimes freezes or behaves weirdly. ADB CLI helps in such cases, though.

Other than that it's a pretty solid and usable system.

If you decide to use Linux, make sure your HW is well supported. For example AMD seems to be better choice over nVidia or even Intel.

Re: The Framework Laptop

#928

Post by NikolaNovak »

imwillofficial wrote: post #379
NikolaNovak wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yo (hand up). I mean. Really. That strikes me as willfully ignorant and arrogant. Clearly it's heavily used, especially in professional/corporate environments. FWIW I use WiFi if I have to on the move. But at home and office it's hard wire all the way. In the office it's not even an option, everybody must. At home, it's a quality of life thing. The speed drops and disconnections and unpredictability of WiFi are not t…

"Clearly it's heavily used, especially in professional/corporate environments." It's so clear that they removed it from their lineup? Clearly you're wrong. I have two Macbooks work/home, and a USB-C dock has been life changing in its awesomeness. And yes my dock has RJ-45 ;)

Hmm I feel we're getting circular.

There are discussions on:

1. Is a particular connector still used/useful on laptops - my statement is that RJ45 is absolutely still used on laptops, and went into some examples / use-cases.

2. Separate discussion, hopefully informed by the first, is how do we do that - built into laptop or via a bunch of dongles.

Apple in particular removing it from their laptops does not speak one way or another to corporate/professional environment requirements. Their approach is "use a dongle/dock" which in their view is compatible with whatever use case is needed (and some people disagree, which is fine - lots of vendors and in particular HP/Dell/Thinkpad all have robust professional/corporate/roadwarrior models with dock, port and even pointing stick capability).

Re: The Framework Laptop

#929

Post by medstrom »

walterlb wrote: post #668
BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This comment was made via Pentadactyl Enlighten us all. What exactly did you press and what mental decision and awareness process was required to do it starting from the front page? > [count]gi "[count]" sounds like one would need to know how many like things on the page precede the thing you're trying to get to. Thanks but no thanks. 150! Oops, 100! Oops, 130!

I am actually (non-sarcastically) interested in the answer. I've always wondered if there was a usable keyboard only browsing experience out there!

"Usable" partly depends on you.

Re: The Framework Laptop

#930

Post by medstrom »

Brakenshire wrote: post #450
sixothree wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me introduce you to the developers whose primary machine is a laptop without a mouse. Or a second screen.

I actually use the touchpad for scrolling even when I’m using a mouse. It’s a much better interface for that purpose.

Now I'm picturing a fat tungsten scrollwheel with a lot of inertia, that keeps spinning after you roll it.
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