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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?

#291

Post by p3llin0r3 »

I have a System76 Galago Pro with 32 gigs of ram and an i7 processor.

Works GREAT, fan of the keyboard and everything.

The case is kinda shit, but it doesn't really bother me that much. I'm not obsessed with having a designer laptop that looks beautiful, just something to slam around and run programs on. Additionally, having a ton of ports to plug things into has been very welcome after migrating off of the touchpad macbook pros.

Linux desktop is nice because of the great docker support, and honestly it tends to work quite well for pretty much everything I throw at it. Multi-monitor support is great, it works fine with my 4k monitor. I was AMAZED when I plugged my usb-c headphones into the usb-c port and heard sound come out.

I tend to just travel with a ball mouse because I have really severe hyperhidrosis which renders basically all track-pads, even Apples', completely unusable, and uncomfortable to boot. Moisture + friction is not a great combo.

I admit that I'm a bit of a weirdo and this set-up would be sub-optimal for a lot of people due to support for various adobe products. But I'm happy with the setup.

If I could go back in time I would probably get a Surface laptop and set my home computer up as a server, and automate sending work to it, because I'm a big fan of indie video games and would enjoy being able to play games on my laptop.

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

#292

Post by MrLeftHand »

jolmg wrote: post #288
MrLeftHand wrote: post #81

One of the main reasons I stopped using Linux is the touchpad! It is horrible out of the box experience and the insult to injury is the lack of no good user interface to even set anything. You have to screw around with libinput or xinput with zero documentation on both parts and hope you will hit a sweet spot eventually and hope that any future updates won't break it. I am way past of the tinkerer phase where I would…

I've never had to touch libinput or xinput to control the touchpad. I just use synclient, and never had much trouble. Scroll vertically or horizontally with 2 fingers, middle click with 2 finger taps, right click with 3 finger taps. Middle-button drag by tapping with 2 fingers and then dragging with 1 finger. What was so horrible? Maybe things have improved since you tried it last.

No palm detection by default. Horizontal scroll was so sensitive, that even on the slightest movement triggered it. Taps were too sensitive. And vertical scroll was sluggish.

All these things I managed to fix more or less with xinput, by changing some Synaptics properties. And worked fine. Then I jumped versions wit Ubuntu from 16.10 to 18.04 and everything broke. The properties I've used were gone or changed. So I had no chance to use my old settings and I would've started from square one. So I just left. Was tired of the bullsh*t.

If only there would have been a comprehensive application to do this without editing config files and reading forums and scarce documentation. Then I would've stayed probably.

Oh and trying to have 3 and 4 finger swipes and such. No that was another horror story.

So this whole thing is not just about the touchpad for me (but was the final straw in a way), but the overall experience with Linux. The un-userfriendliness of it. The very top layer is nice and you can configure it relatively easily, but as soon as you go one level deep, it's configuration hell if you're not lucky.

And this coming from a guy who loved to compile his own kernels back in the day. Now all I want is a good user experience.

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

#293

Post by MrLeftHand »

jandrese wrote: post #224
trash_panda wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading this thread makes me wonder if I live in the same universe as HN. I'm amazed at the level of exquisiteness of the requirements of the HN crowd. I mean, I've been using computers all my life and used almost every Linux, Windows and OS X systems. I do get that Macbook touchpads are god-tier and unrivaled so far by other hardware manufacturers. That being said, I rather have my old Lenovo x220 with an external m…

For the most part I've been reasonably happy with Linux touchpads (maybe I'm too accepting of less than a perfect experience?) except for one area: Palm rejection. When you have a giant touchpad it's absolutely necessary to have good working palm rejection, and I've seen far too many laptops completely fail to have palm rejection in Ubuntu. Sometimes you can get it working again by twiddling the mouse driver (enable/…

For me Ubuntu 18 was worse then 16.10. A lot of properties I used to fine tune the touchpad with xinput were gone or changed.

Was very disappointed. So if you haven't made the change yet, then you might want to stay on whatever you're on for the time being.

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

#294

Post by masklinn »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #290
masklinn wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You were the one expressing in absolutes. No, I was not. Go back and actually read my comment, I very specifically talked about myself and my precision using a trackpoint. In support of lokedhs professing to the same. And as an expression of the uselessness and irrelevance of isostatic's comment answering a question nobody'd asked. But as usual the trackpoint zealots can't even take an expression of personal issues…

> That's completely immaterial to the precision of it, which is why I'm unable to use it To me that reads as though you are unable to use it because the device itself is imprecise. That some indeed do find it more precise would seem to exonerate the device. Personal preference, is a different can of worms. :) No zealotry present at all, here at least.

> To me that reads as though you are unable to use it because the device itself is imprecise.

It is a call back to lokedhs's original issue:

> Once in a while I try to use it, but I find it almost impossible control with any kind of precision. Changing the sensitivity doesn't help much.

which is what they were asking about when they wrote

> How do you use it? Is this just a matter of getting used to it, and if it is, how long does it take?

right afterwards, not "what finger are you using" (the index of the dominant hand would certainly be the obvious choice to just about anyone).

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

#297

Post by trash_panda »

MrLeftHand wrote: post #287
trash_panda wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading this thread makes me wonder if I live in the same universe as HN. I'm amazed at the level of exquisiteness of the requirements of the HN crowd. I mean, I've been using computers all my life and used almost every Linux, Windows and OS X systems. I do get that Macbook touchpads are god-tier and unrivaled so far by other hardware manufacturers. That being said, I rather have my old Lenovo x220 with an external m…

First of all, when there is a manufacturer who can create something decent as a macbook touchpad, then others can do the same. Especially when you are at a price point that is identical to a Macbook's. There is no excuse to cut corners on such a simple thing like a stupid touchpad. Second, nobody here is a Macbook fanboy just because their touchpads, but there is a reason why we praise them. From my part I am not a f…

I agree that this is not the core issue in this post, and we shouldn't turn this into the classic Mac vs. non Mac that leads nowhere, more so when there is a guy/girl who actually volunteered to fix the driver issues.

I reacted to the comments bashing Linux and such, because I cannot relate to the level of discomfort that people express with their non-apple touchpad. I mean, I use Linux and I use those same shitty touchpads, but I do my work just fine and don't stress about it. I mean, if you think your touchpad is shitty you should try the Lenovo x220 one, it's terrible lol.

What I wanted to understand is what are the uses cases of users like you, where you get to the point of hating a touchpad and make you work slower. Maybe the way I use the mouse it's pretty basic and I need to up my game with multi-gesture magic. But all I need from a mouse is: interaction with my desktop environment, scrolling, copying and pasting text, some basic image editing, and using the office suites which require a lot of mousing. And I can do that with almost every mouse/touchpad.

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

#298

Post by ealhad »

bovine3dom wrote: post #268
scandox wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think maybe this is the problem I would pay $100,000 to solve / improve? https://imgur.com/a/7axkPSW

If you switch to Tridactyl [1], our buggier, less popular, and less user friendly competitor to Vimium, you can pass hints CSS selectors. E.g, `hint -c a+a+a` only highlights comments on the HN homepage (and every third link in a row on other pages). I have it bound with `bind ;c hint -c [class*="expand"],[class="togg"],a+a+a` which also lets me toggle comments on HN and reddit. [1]: https://github.com/cmcaine/tridac…

Cool! Before FF 57 I used Vimperator, so I might give Tridactyl a try.

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

#299

Post by narvval »

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…

In my case, my opinion is based on:

- All (newish) thinkpads having spill-resistant keyboards.

- The best-selling ones (X & T series) meeting the Mil-SPEC 810G standard.

I use a Mac though, because I got tired of fighting to get Linux properly running on my thinkpad

edit:format

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

#300

Post by MrLeftHand »

trash_panda wrote: post #270
ninkendo wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

In certain ways touchpads can be more precise. With a good mouse with very high DPI, movement will be better, but when it comes to stuff like, pinch zoom, or fine scrolling, then touchpads are much better.

Also with gestures you have way more stuff you can do with a touchpad then just moving a mouse and clicking stuff.

And let's not forget the smaller travel distance of your hand when you go from keyboard to touchpad, as when you go from keyboard to mouse, or back.

I have a Logitech MX Anywhere 2. I love that mouse. It is fantastic and when I'm working on my home laptop I use it every day, if I'm in desktop mode that is. And I prefer it over the touchpad.

But when I work on the 'work' Macbook Pro (2015), then I use the touchpad all the way. It's just so much better and intuitive compared to using a regular mouse.

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