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Apologies for the self-plug but this is what I built for GitHub to do exactly this: https://github.com/MikeMcQuaid/strap . Add Homebrew Bundle and a Dotfiles repo into the mix and you get what was described. This is obviously pretty Homebrew and GitHub centric because I work on both.
Just want to thank you for `strap` and your `dotfiles` repo's, Mike! They've been terrifically helpful in setting up my Mac environment.
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Agreed. Apple makes the best consumer mobile computer hardware by far, repairability issues aside. The touchpad is originally what sold me on my first MacBook (2013 13" Retina) and it is still the feature I miss the most on other laptops.
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'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 years ago and I'm still using it every day. And my home beater is a 2008 Macbook Pro that I've dragged all over the world; the only failure so far has been a fan, which I replaced myself.
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Agreed. Apple makes the best consumer mobile computer hardware by far, repairability issues aside. The touchpad is originally what sold me on my first MacBook (2013 13" Retina) and it is still the feature I miss the most on other laptops.
I had kept repairability issue aside until I had to go for flash drive replacement of my 2012 13" MacBook Air recently. Apple support (which is a 3rd party in my country) said ~$400 and local repair guys quotes like $350 or so. The new MBA (last year's) is available for ~800 here. Apparently I can't get any other brand's flash drive fit in there. That laptop worked just fine (battery, screen all). I wish I can find a…
It would be great to know why the Linux drivers aren’t as good as the Mac touchpad drivers. I have little experience with Linux input drivers, but significant experience with the Android touch input stack (including a fair bit of experience hacking the Synaptics touchscreen drivers). Is it a matter of (1) the drivers themselves failing to provide good raw data (finger positions, update rate, positional accuracy, etc.…
The last 10% of any implementation is where the most difficulty lies. I'm happy to see the author not just accepting good enough, as Desktop Linux has really been evolving past that point in recent years to be a legitimate contender for daily/progressional use. Gnome and other desktop software has come a long way.
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x1 (gen c5) is amazing as well. After almost a decade as a macbook user, i'm impressed by it & back to linux! :)
I have one of those from work and running NixOS in it, everything works perfectly and I love the machine. Btw if thinking of a X1C for Linux use, I'd skip the latest for now due to them changing how the sleep works and it having issues even with Windows (losing battery while sleeping). The fifth model is great though, if you're not looking for the 8th gen CPU and HDR screen.
It would be great to know why the Linux drivers aren’t as good as the Mac touchpad drivers. I have little experience with Linux input drivers, but significant experience with the Android touch input stack (including a fair bit of experience hacking the Synaptics touchscreen drivers). Is it a matter of (1) the drivers themselves failing to provide good raw data (finger positions, update rate, positional accuracy, etc.…
Apple has people who's full time job is doing that. Linux doesn't. The maintainer of one of the drivers basically comes out and says, "You'd need someone working full time on this."
Step two will be for me to sift through the offers and figure out how they can be pieced together into a plan of action. It seems unrealistic to expect that we could raise more than... $20k?... from detail-oriented perfectionists, so I still need to figure out how best to constrain the scope of the goals enough to get this done with scarce resources (unless someone at Microsoft wants to kick in $1m in exchange for the affection of several thousand developers? :D)
It doesn't help that my day job is running a company in the process of launching two new products -- this has a tendency to gobble up available evenings and weekends and I wouldn't recommend it. But I've added it to my todo list to puzzle out how to combine these dev resources into a plan. It's plausible that the current libinput developer could be swayed by this outpouring to help me build a viable plan to build a modern Linux touchpad driver. I'll start there.
Look for an updated blog post with progress in the next couple months. And who knows, maybe I won't still be using this 10 year old hardware in another year?
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Really? Why not? Why would you use a mouse if you're on a laptop? Especially a macbook, where the trackpad is fantastic to use and offers gestures which give you features you don't get with a mouse.
Gestures are awful... They're nonstandard between boxes, and often flaky as all hell. One of the first things I disable on a new OS install. Why wouldn't you use a mouse, and get better precision, a standard form-factor, and universally solid drivers? Besides, you can take your mouse and plug it into any machine you need to work on.
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> No touchpad is as good as a decent external mouse (decent != expensive, mine is $30). Funny, on both my work and home mac desktops, I use the Magic Touchpad as my primary input device even while sitting at a desk. So I suppose I disagree with this statement.
Yes, I think using one of those instead of an external mouse is a good idea. In my case I find a regular mouse more comfortable than ANY touchpad. What about precision? do you think that the touchpad is more precise than a good mouse on a good mousepad? I'm not asking you if YOU are more "productive" using a touchpad, I'm asking you if you think that if we compare a proficient regular mouse user vs a proficient Mac t…
I would never want to use a mouse again! Yes, for me an Apple touchpad is way superior to a mouse. If you don't get that, that's fine. We all have our blindspots.