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Linux Touchpad Like MacBook Update: 2023 Progress on Smooth Scrolling

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Re: Linux Touchpad Like MacBook Update: 2023 Progress on Smooth Scrolling

#241

Post by benhurmarcel »

nerdjon wrote: post #59
al_borland wrote: post #6

Why does this seem like such a hard problem to solve for everyone that isn’t Apple, when Apple seemingly solved the Trackpad over a decade ago? Is this it? An unknown ROI? >the highly uncertain ROI for trying to align touchpad acceleration has prevented us from proposing a system change to the default Linux settings. I can only speak for myself, but I gave up using trackpads on anything that isn’t a MacBook many year…

It is an interesting thing to think about, I have friends that use Windows that are shocked that I willingly chose to get an external trackpad when I use my Mac as desktop. Even more interesting is when I see my partner try to do something on my Mac using a trackpad, he seems... apprehensive? Like he is so afraid of doing the wrong thing and for me this trackpad has never done something I didn't want it to do. Like w…

> I have friends that use Windows that are shocked that I willingly chose to get an external trackpad when I use my Mac as desktop

I use an external Apple Magic trackpad on a Windows desktop. It's a good and smooth experience.

Re: Linux Touchpad Like MacBook Update: 2023 Progress on Smooth Scrolling

#242

Post by ralphist »

Analemma_ wrote: post #133
ralphist wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I filed an issue[1] on cosmic in hope they'll get it right, but I don't have too high hopes that this is of much interest. That's insane but you're right. Firefox on Ubuntu had awful trackpad scrolling 10 years ago and it's still bad. How do you make an OS where the main pointing device on half of the market sucks and assign that low priority?

> How do you make an OS where the main pointing device on half of the market sucks and assign that low priority? Because Linux isn't "an OS". It's a kernel made by one set of developers, combined with a bunch of operating systems made by a second set of developers, which pick and choose compositors/window managers/etc. often made by a third set of developers. Each of these sets of developers are pretty good at solvin…

That's why I mentioned Ubuntu; if anyone has incentive and resources to contribute to all these projects and get smooth scrolling working it's Canonical. If _they_ can't, I guess that means the whole community is screwed on that side. Maybe it's going to work 20 years from now, when we've moved on from trackpads to AI voice interfaces.

Re: Linux Touchpad Like MacBook Update: 2023 Progress on Smooth Scrolling

#243

Post by ralphist »

e12e wrote: post #165
ralphist wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're using it wrong. You can travel a whole screen with one trackpad move if you move the finger fast enough. Maybe you didn't hit a high enough acceleration?

Also when "holding" a window or icon?

The cursor moves the same way, it's just a bit harder because you can't let go of the cursor and start over from the corner of the touchpad with more room to move once you've pressed. But thanks to acceleration, you can move fast towards e.g. the left, slowly move back to the right (covering a much shorter distance), then move fast back left to finish the travel, if you missed it the first time.

Re: Linux Touchpad Like MacBook Update: 2023 Progress on Smooth Scrolling

#244

Post by ralphist »

t-3 wrote: post #221
ralphist wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I filed an issue[1] on cosmic in hope they'll get it right, but I don't have too high hopes that this is of much interest. That's insane but you're right. Firefox on Ubuntu had awful trackpad scrolling 10 years ago and it's still bad. How do you make an OS where the main pointing device on half of the market sucks and assign that low priority?

The pointing device doesn't suck, just the defaults (and probably the graphical configuration tools - I always use CLI and editing config files but most open-source GUIs are horrible). If you're willing to spend 5-10 minutes tweaking, you can get exactly the same performance or better just by playing around with some settings.

That's only going to affect part of your apps though. Last I checked, Firefox on Ubuntu finally had a kind of pixel-perfect scrolling, but it wasn't smooth and didn't keep momentum if you let go of the trackpad while scrolling fast. That just feels bad, even after getting used to it.

And Qt apps will scroll differently than the GNOME project's apps which will scroll differently than other Gtk apps. It really feels disorganized and unfinished.

Re: Linux Touchpad Like MacBook Update: 2023 Progress on Smooth Scrolling

#245

Post by MisterKent »

jmole wrote: post #226
sandreas wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While is may be true from a user perspective, this "kinetic scrolling simulation" was removed, because it could lead to unexpected behaviour. Example: If you where scrolling in a window, the driver kept sending scroll events for a short time to simulate kinetic scrolling. Now, if you moved the cursor to another window, the other window started scrolling, because of the simulated events. This is not the case on macOS.…

> Now, if you moved the cursor to another window, the other window started scrolling, because of the simulated events. This is such a trivial thing to fix, you just stop sending scroll events when the cursor moves. Peter has done a great job on libinput for the most part, but he is 100% wrong about inertial scrolling (and button remapping, among a few other things).

Alt + Tab

Re: Linux Touchpad Like MacBook Update: 2023 Progress on Smooth Scrolling

#246

Post by nerdjon »

pico303 wrote: post #170
nerdjon wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you mention the touchpad being too small, are you trying to drag and drop with one finger or multiple? What I always just do is click with my thumb and move around with my other fingers. As long as my thumb stays down it stays selected. Then just a few quick swipes with my finger gets whatever it is I am selecting where I want to go. Same works for windows and anything you click and drag. Admittedly there is a…

This is 100% the way to do it. It just came so naturally because I’ve used Macs for years. But I’ve noticed on Linux and Windows laptops (even Windows on an Intel MacBook) this approach doesn’t work. I find it so frustrating when I have to use a trackpad with any other OS, I completely understand all those users carrying around a mouse to use with their laptop, and why they look at us like we’re nuts!

You know I never really thought about where that habit came from. It’s been so long that it’s just second nature at this point, I dont think about it anymore than I think about typing or using a game controller.

That presents an interesting problem. The older physical click trackpads had a physical thing to encourage a specific use of it. Now that the device doesn’t care where you click, there is no longer something there to naturally find using it in this way.

Re: Linux Touchpad Like MacBook Update: 2023 Progress on Smooth Scrolling

#247

Post by circuit10 »

LorenDB wrote: post #89
circuit10 wrote: post #16

The main thing I think is missing is universal support for kinetic/inertial scrolling, where you can fling your fingers on the touchpad and it keeps going after you stop. It seems to work with GTK but not Qt

I would find that incredibly annoying for touchpad inputs. Sure, I can understand kinetic input for touchscreens, but touchpads should be precision inputs, not the sort of thing where accidentally bumping two fingers on the touchpad sends you two pages down.

I don't find accidentally triggering it to be a problem, and it's really useful when you need to scroll a long way

Re: Linux Touchpad Like MacBook Update: 2023 Progress on Smooth Scrolling

#248

Post by orangeboats »

cl3misch wrote: post #237
rmbyrro wrote: post #236

Is there an initiative going on to make hibernation work on Linux? I think this is a much higher priority... Honestly, this is the only thing that bothers me about Linux. I need to keep my machine suspended between use sessions, which is a waste of the planet's resources. Imagine that multiplied by the dozens (maybe 100's?) of thousands of engineers doing the same?

I have always been bewildered about the demand for suspend-to-disk (aka. hibernation). Suspend-to-RAM (aka. standby) consumes virtually no energy, doesn't create disk writes, and wakeup is instant. The desire for hibernation seems to be constant and widespread though. Honest question, what do you expect from hibernation that you don't get from standby?

Back then (10 years ago?) standby consumed energy, if you left your laptop on standby mode for far too long you'd come back to see the battery dead and you lose all your work.

So hibernation was by far the best option to maintain a long-running desktop session. But these days standby mode consumes so little energy that hibernation is no longer needed in my honest opinion. Still the mindset remains.

Re: Linux Touchpad Like MacBook Update: 2023 Progress on Smooth Scrolling

#249

Post by nerdjon »

lhamil64 wrote: post #201
macintux wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One configuration I always immediately make is enabling three-finger dragging, along with tap-to-click. Significantly reduces the friction (both literal and figurative).

I don't have a MacBook but I looked up a video and this seems interesting. But how does it solve the problem of hitting the edge of the trackpad? If anything, it seems like it makes the problem worse because now you have three fingers on the trackpad so you will hit the edge quicker.

So I will do my best to explain it, one of the hard problems here is this is just kinda second nature for me. So I may not do a good enough job of explaining it.

But ok so for me, I basically am always resting my thumb (I am right handed if that helps visualize) on the bottom-ish part of my trackpad. So so when I am moving my mouse I have 2 fingers on it. My thumb is just sitting there and my index is moving around.

My thumb is basically my clicking button. It doesn't have to be, but for me it is. It also doesn't have to be at the bottom, I can click anywhere which is nice when I am quickly going from my keyboard to my trackpad and need to click something.

So because I click with my thumb and move with my other finger(s). I can click to drag, select, whatever it is that I am doing with my thumb. And them move with my other finger. With my thumb staying down, I am free to pickup and move my finger as many times as I need. I can pickup my finger for as long as I need to and it will stay selected for as long as my thumb is still there "pressed".

With acceleration that Mac uses, with just a few quick swipes I can easily move a window between 3 monitors.

Since the trackpad is also not physically moving when I "click", it is just pressure sensitive. It also isn't a strain to keep my thumb down.

Re: Linux Touchpad Like MacBook Update: 2023 Progress on Smooth Scrolling

#250

Post by IshKebab »

bheadmaster wrote: post #229
IshKebab wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This whole thread is about people buying Macs because they have great touchpads (and I agree with that - I also would never buy anything else because of the touchpad). Apple doesn't put "better touchpad" on their labels either. It's just very very obvious that they're better.

> Apple doesn't put "better touchpad" on their labels either. It's just very very obvious that they're better. Exactly. Everyone knows Apple has better touchpad, but nobody knows that about some random PC manufacturer. How will they signal that he has better touchpad in order to justify the higher price?

By sending their laptop to shops and reviewers for people to try?

There are plenty of PC manufacturers that aren't "some random PC manufacturer". ThinkPad, Asus, Acer, HP, Dell. They are known brands that can easily maintain reputations.

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