4 ms·

If one company made a laptop trackpad as good as Apple's that worked perfectly in any mainstream Linux distro I'd buy their laptop in a heartbeat. I've never se

If one company made a laptop trackpad as good as Apple's that worked perfectly in any mainstream Linux distro I'd buy their laptop in a heartbeat. I've never seen one that fits that bill though.

geerlingguy 8y ago
So far the closest I've seen is the Dell XPS line... but those trackpads are still on the smaller side and have physical click buttons. One of my favorite aspects of force touch is you can adjust the pressure required for a click to register—and the amount of physical feedback you get!
- lostmsu 8y ago
  You can do that on pretty much any Windows laptop. Not the feedback though. Is there a feedback?
PolCPP 8y ago
The closest i've seen to that is the Pixelbook but that's not mainstream linux but clearly shows it's doable
ISL 8y ago
From ~2001-2005, the finest linux laptop I'd ever seen was an Apple product running Debian. I presume that people have linux running on modern macbooks -- would that fit your needs?
- lev99 8y ago
  https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux New macbooks are not universally supported by Linux.
PuffinBlue 8y ago
At this point I think just sticking a phone screen in there instead of the poor excuses for touchpads we normally get would be better. It's super easy to get a great phone touchscreen, maybe just grab the glass and touch matrix or whatever, but that would surely be better than the sorry state of affairs of current touchpads.
- lev99 8y ago
  It would consume significantly more battery than a touchpad, unless it is OLED which would be significantly more expensive than a touchpad.
  - PuffinBlue 8y ago
    Why would you need the screen? Just take the glass/digitizer assembly.
  - ben_w 8y ago
    It doesn’t need to be lit up to work as a trackpad.
- gargravarr 8y ago
  See also: https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/5/17424770/asus-zenbook-pro-screenpad-specs-release-date-price-computex-2018 https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/5/17424770/asus-zenbook-pro-...
maxxxxx 8y ago
That's what I am thinking too. My 2014 Macbook is the only laptop I have used where keyboard and trackpad work really well. I have tried Dell, Surface and others but their trackpads simply suck. The friction is wrong, they don't register taps, the palm gets in the way. The Mac is the only one I can actually use and enjoy. If I could get a Linux with the same trackpad I would be in in a heartbeat.
seba_dos1 8y ago
Recently I've found out that software makes a lot of difference when it comes to touchpads. I've tried Windows, xf86-input-synaptics and libinput on the same machine, and while on xf86-input-synaptics (my default) the experience was so close to Apple's that I long couldn't understand why people consider their touchpads so special, switching to Windows or libinput made it absolutely awful to use. There are TONS of small things that can make touchpad usage pleasant of annoying and I believe these days it's mostly about software (aside of obvious hardware things like type of surface, size and placement). I guess Apple simply got their driver nicely fine-tuned to their own hardware, and that's it.
- Puer 8y ago
  What user wants to have to spend time configuring and maintaining drivers? I hated having to find the right drivers for all of the gear on Windows/Linux and maintain it through every update. I don't want to have to depend on a 3rd party for my built-in hardware to just work. Furthermore, Apple's touchpad is infinitely superior in terms of hardware and that was a huge factor for me. I can't count the number of crappy Dell touchpads that have broken and stopped because they seem to be made of cheap matte plastic. They don't feel good to use physically and no amount of software tuning will fix that. My touchpad on my 2015 MBP is solid glass and should never break from regular use because it isn't actually a button.
  - aequitas 8y ago
    Even as a engineer I don't want to spend that. At work we got Dell laptops and I'm happy we can run Linux so at least I can customise it to feel more like I'm used to with my Mac (eg: sane shortcuts like cmd-c, that don't conflict with ctrl-c terminal commands). But I rather don't have to customise anything at all and have it 'just work' which for with a Mac is most often the case. I've spend so much time just getting hardware to work and having the laptop behave properly on simple stuff like unplugging a dock, closing a lid or pushing a power button.
  - ropeadopepope 8y ago
    > I don't want to have to depend on a 3rd party for my built-in hardware to just work. You mean like you depend on Apple to maintain their drivers? What difference does it make if your OS auto-installs the latest driver via MacOS update or if the Lenovo Updater auto-installs a new driver through their own updater? Driver conflicts are a pain in the ass, I'll grant you that, but those are pretty rare these days. At least in the windows world.
paulie_a 8y ago
The Dell XPS Developer edition kicks the shit out of any apple trackpad and any macbook in general.
- lcfcjs 8y ago
  Haha, found the guy thats never tried an Apple trackpad.
stamps 8y ago
Purism's Librem 13. Everything works great out of the box on Manjaro including the trackpad. Size isn't exactly up to Apples though, if you're using later models. Last Macbook I used was a 2012 15 inch MBP.
ropeadopepope 8y ago
I wouldn't. Say what you want about Windows and MacOS, there hasn't been a single problem on either of those OS's that I couldn't fix in a couple of hours. I routinely spend days and even weeks wrestling with Linux trying to get it to do something that should "just work." Most recently? Trying to get the OpenVPN client to work.

If one company made a laptop trackpad as good as Apple's that worked perfectly in any mainstream Linux distro I'd buy their laptop in a heartbeat. I've never seen one that fits that bill though.

geerlingguy 8y ago

So far the closest I've seen is the Dell XPS line... but those trackpads are still on the smaller side and have physical click buttons. One of my favorite aspects of force touch is you can adjust the pressure required for a click to register—and the amount of physical feedback you get!

lostmsu 8y ago
You can do that on pretty much any Windows laptop. Not the feedback though. Is there a feedback?

PolCPP 8y ago

The closest i've seen to that is the Pixelbook but that's not mainstream linux but clearly shows it's doable

ISL 8y ago

From ~2001-2005, the finest linux laptop I'd ever seen was an Apple product running Debian. I presume that people have linux running on modern macbooks -- would that fit your needs?

lev99 8y ago
https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux New macbooks are not universally supported by Linux.

PuffinBlue 8y ago

At this point I think just sticking a phone screen in there instead of the poor excuses for touchpads we normally get would be better. It's super easy to get a great phone touchscreen, maybe just grab the glass and touch matrix or whatever, but that would surely be better than the sorry state of affairs of current touchpads.

lev99 8y ago
It would consume significantly more battery than a touchpad, unless it is OLED which would be significantly more expensive than a touchpad.
- PuffinBlue 8y ago
  Why would you need the screen? Just take the glass/digitizer assembly.
- ben_w 8y ago
  It doesn’t need to be lit up to work as a trackpad.
gargravarr 8y ago
See also: https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/5/17424770/asus-zenbook-pro-screenpad-specs-release-date-price-computex-2018 https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/5/17424770/asus-zenbook-pro-...

maxxxxx 8y ago

That's what I am thinking too. My 2014 Macbook is the only laptop I have used where keyboard and trackpad work really well. I have tried Dell, Surface and others but their trackpads simply suck. The friction is wrong, they don't register taps, the palm gets in the way. The Mac is the only one I can actually use and enjoy. If I could get a Linux with the same trackpad I would be in in a heartbeat.

seba_dos1 8y ago

Recently I've found out that software makes a lot of difference when it comes to touchpads. I've tried Windows, xf86-input-synaptics and libinput on the same machine, and while on xf86-input-synaptics (my default) the experience was so close to Apple's that I long couldn't understand why people consider their touchpads so special, switching to Windows or libinput made it absolutely awful to use. There are TONS of small things that can make touchpad usage pleasant of annoying and I believe these days it's mostly about software (aside of obvious hardware things like type of surface, size and placement). I guess Apple simply got their driver nicely fine-tuned to their own hardware, and that's it.

Puer 8y ago
What user wants to have to spend time configuring and maintaining drivers? I hated having to find the right drivers for all of the gear on Windows/Linux and maintain it through every update. I don't want to have to depend on a 3rd party for my built-in hardware to just work. Furthermore, Apple's touchpad is infinitely superior in terms of hardware and that was a huge factor for me. I can't count the number of crappy Dell touchpads that have broken and stopped because they seem to be made of cheap matte plastic. They don't feel good to use physically and no amount of software tuning will fix that. My touchpad on my 2015 MBP is solid glass and should never break from regular use because it isn't actually a button.
- aequitas 8y ago
  Even as a engineer I don't want to spend that. At work we got Dell laptops and I'm happy we can run Linux so at least I can customise it to feel more like I'm used to with my Mac (eg: sane shortcuts like cmd-c, that don't conflict with ctrl-c terminal commands). But I rather don't have to customise anything at all and have it 'just work' which for with a Mac is most often the case. I've spend so much time just getting hardware to work and having the laptop behave properly on simple stuff like unplugging a dock, closing a lid or pushing a power button.
- ropeadopepope 8y ago
  > I don't want to have to depend on a 3rd party for my built-in hardware to just work. You mean like you depend on Apple to maintain their drivers? What difference does it make if your OS auto-installs the latest driver via MacOS update or if the Lenovo Updater auto-installs a new driver through their own updater? Driver conflicts are a pain in the ass, I'll grant you that, but those are pretty rare these days. At least in the windows world.

paulie_a 8y ago

The Dell XPS Developer edition kicks the shit out of any apple trackpad and any macbook in general.

lcfcjs 8y ago
Haha, found the guy thats never tried an Apple trackpad.

stamps 8y ago

Purism's Librem 13. Everything works great out of the box on Manjaro including the trackpad. Size isn't exactly up to Apples though, if you're using later models. Last Macbook I used was a 2012 15 inch MBP.

ropeadopepope 8y ago

I wouldn't. Say what you want about Windows and MacOS, there hasn't been a single problem on either of those OS's that I couldn't fix in a couple of hours. I routinely spend days and even weeks wrestling with Linux trying to get it to do something that should "just work." Most recently? Trying to get the OpenVPN client to work.