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Linux touchpad like a Macbook: goal worth pursuing?

433 points by macco 8y ago

MrLeftHand 8y ago
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 enjoy spending a week on trying to make something work under Linux just so I can feel better. Or the patience where I waited for 1.5 years just to have proper support for the AGP slot on my motherboard. I want a Linux system that works out of the box and has no problems with standard features like a touchpad. Under Windows 10 the new precision drivers are fantastic, very close to Mac comfort. Whoever creates something similar under Linux deserves a Nobel Prize and a monument.
- mkirklions 8y ago
  We are all talking about desktop? Ubuntu desktop is annoying IMO. Server is the only linux worth running. Windows has a superior desktop experience. Ive made serious attempts to use linux desktops since ubuntu 7 and the annoyance factor of getting things to 'work' and the hostile community is really offputting.
  - MrLeftHand 8y ago
    I feel your pain. Ubuntu Desktop was my preferred go to distro not too long ago. Using 16.10 was nice and I managed to get the touchpad working in a reasonable way with xinput. Then 18 came along and everything went to hell. All the properties changed and some even disappeared. And of course the ones missing were the ones I actually needed to make my touchpad work in a way that it was comfortable to use. After that I just jumped ship. I didn't wanted to spend another week to figure out everything again. I happily choose Linux when it comes to servers and other non-desktop related work, but I am very disappointed how it lacks user friendliness and ease of use. 10-20 years back I would have said, that laptops are a niche platform and that's why it has a hard time supporting hardware. But it's 2018 and laptops are becoming mainstream in everyday use. Not being able to support the primary pointing hardware on a platform so popular is a death sentence. And don't get me started on discrete GPUs...
    - trash_panda 8y ago
      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 mouse. No touchpad is as good as a decent external mouse (decent != expensive, mine is $30). If you want to see an abysmal differences between touchpads, compare a Macbook one with the Lenovo's X220 touchpad. The X220 is the worst touchpad I've ever used, but it is still my main computer and I love it. People talk about Mac's build quality, when I think they should be referring to its industrial design, which I get is very appealing to the senses. Now, the X220 has serious build quality. You couln't break it if you wanted to, and if you do break it, almost every part is < $100 on eBay and easy to repair. My point is the following, and as other commenter said; I think people choose Macs before they like it better, it suits their image and are willing to pay their pricetag. I know people need to justify their choices as if Macs are the only objective solution that fits their use cases, but I find this hard to believe. I understand that everyone has its valid reasons behinds every choice they make, but what bothers me (I know it shouldn't but who cares) is when that people bash on Linux and other hardware manufacturers just because they don't LIKE that OS/computer. I don't LIKE macOS/Macs and I don't them, that doesn't mean they are not good systems. I just CHOOSE to not use them because MY reasons. Nowadays most systems offer more than acceptable user experiences out of the box, whether its a Linux/Windows/macOS box on whatever hardware. The thing is that people get really picky and justify their decisions by diminishing other manufacturers/systems. I believe people are afraid to say "I bought a Mac because I like them! f* you!"
      - jandrese 8y ago
        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/disable xinput for example), but sometimes it just plain never works. I've been all over StackExchange and similar places but on some laptops none of the proposed solutions work. I've opened bug reports, but it's hard for developers to fix it when they can't replicate the problem. Sometimes you only get half functionality, like the cursor won't move but it will still click, moving your text cursor to random places when the palm lightly brushes the touchpad and it registers as a click. On some laptops I just have to pack in a mouse and disable the touchpad entirely. That's not an acceptable solution. I'm really hoping that Ubuntu 18 avoids some of this nonsense.
  - chupasaurus 8y ago
    There are more than 2 desktop environments for Linux you've tried if my guess is right (since you've tried Ubuntu). Imo KDE is light years ahead than Windows but requires to set it up for your taste.
    - MrLeftHand 8y ago
      Can KDE do something about touchpad support whist the underlying X and kernel support for the hardware is absolute rubbish? It was a while ago I used KDE, but from what I can remember there was no option to fine tune touchpad behaviour. I like that under Linux you have a freedom of choice when it comes to window managers. KDE, Gnome2-3, XFCE, Cinnamon, you name it. It's awesome to have so many tools for one problem. Hell, I even liked Unity. I think it was a very clean and easy to use wmanager. But no matter how fancy-ass the wrapping is, if the problem is underneath it.
      - jpetso 8y ago
        KDE does have to configuration in its system settings, but it obviously only relies on the standard X/kernel drivers and is only a convenience GUI for setting these options.
      - haspok 8y ago
        As I found it out the hard way, xinput is pretty bare and does not support the settings required to make the touchpad usable on an XPS 9343, for example. The settings for minimum and maximum acceleration are missing (and so these options are greyed out on the KDE GUI). They are defaulted to MIN and MAX respectively. Solution: install Synaptics, open KDE panel, set both acceleration settings to a low value, enjoy.
  - PascLeRasc 8y ago
    What did you think of Elementary OS?
  - koffiezet 8y ago
    > Server is the only linux worth running Also: > Linux is the only server worth running :P
- dgregd 8y ago
  > Under Windows 10 the new precision drivers are fantastic So it would be reasonable to limit that new Linux driver to support only Windows Precision compatible touch-pads. It seems that variety of different touch-pad hardware is causing that problems with creating a good Linux driver.
  - Qub3d 8y ago
    That is what the article suggests; creating a driver that supports most popular devices within the last 3 years or so. Personally, I'm on board with this. We shouldn't be as concerned about supporting a ThinkPad circa 1994 if it means poorer performance across the boards. Libinput can be the jack-of-all-trades with "good enough" performance for the outliers.
- jolmg 8y ago
  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.
  - MrLeftHand 8y ago
    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.
    - jolmg 8y ago
      > 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. That was my experience with Ubuntu, too. They add a lot of infrastructure for some misguided sense of convenience, partly because of their Debian heritage. I switched to Arch and found all layers to be much simpler to understand. Arch's documentation explains layer by layer and hardly touches upstream projects when packaging them instead of expecting you to use an interface that works only for their distro. For example, Arch's installation guides you to setup basic DNS on /etc/resolv.conf which is read directly by libc domain resolving functions. If DNS is not working, I know the most basic mechanism responsible. There's no, "/etc/network/interfaces looks right, but whatever reads it is not reading it!" problem. Anyway, if Ubuntu's not right for you, then maybe another distro is. A bad experience with Ubuntu doesn't necessarily mean that it would be the same with all distros.
opdahl 8y ago
If someone could actually make this, I would gladly pay an annual subscription to access it. Almost the only reason I'm still buying MacBooks is because of the touchpad, and if I could get that on Linux I probably would just switch to a normal PC.
- trosi 8y ago
  Same here, I would gladly pay a subscription or send a generous donation to the Kickstarter if it happens.
- mkirklions 8y ago
  Who is on this website? I thought these were mostly programmers, but I cannot picture a programmer using a touchpad instead of a mouse.
  - rahoulb 8y ago
    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.
    - megaman22 8y ago
      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.
      - IshKebab 8y ago
        Gestures on Macs are not flaky. That's kind of the whole point of this discussion.
      - mattl 8y ago
        A mouse is fine in an environment where you also have an external monitor and maybe an external keyboard too.
isostatic 8y ago
Am I the only one who prefers the nipples on thinkpads?
- rataata_jr 8y ago
  Uuuuuuhhhhh... Wut? You use that?
- lokedhs 8y ago
  No, but you are probably in the minority. I have one on the Dell laptop I'm using (which also has a touchpad). 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. I first tried that device on the first Thinkpads that had it, back in the 90's or whenever it was. I have always had the same reaction to it. How do you use it? Is this just a matter of getting used to it, and if it is, how long does it take?
  - gjvc 8y ago
    Using a concave rubber top to the TrackPoint helps me greatly.
  - chx 8y ago
    The Dell ones are vastly inferior to the ThinkPad ones. While I do not know the ones in the 20, the last ten or so years I worked solely with TrackPoint first under Linux now under Windows 10. Under Windows 10, there's a Mouse tab in Control Panel, there's a sensitivity slider and I found it's best to have it just one notch below fastest. The default makes me feel I am wrestling with my laptop.
    - lokedhs 8y ago
      I see. I haven't tried the Thinkpads since before they were sold to Lenovo, so perhaps they are superior. I am in the market for a new laptop, so perhaps I should give them a chance. Not really for the pointers, but they do seem to be fine laptops overall.
sabarasaba 8y ago
I used to care a lot about this kind of things about two years ago when I switched from mac to linux. But to be honest, you just kind of get used to it after a while and its not really that much of a deal breaker anymore. I spend most of my time in terminals, and I use i3wm so most of my workflow doesnt involve using the touchpad at all. The only use case i have for it is when using chrome, but even so theres vimium and similar things to help you navigate around without leaving your keyboard.
- de_watcher 8y ago
  I've read the blog post and the comments, nobody says what are the features they're talking about. I've only understood the "cursor nudge".
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- androidgirl 8y ago
  I relate to this comment. I've been using an old HP 8460p for the past few years, and almost always prefer to use the keyboard. Even without i3 there's things like tmux that make it much easier.
- aleph4 8y ago
  Same. Maybe it's just my specific track pad (Precision 5520), but libinput works great for me, with really good palm rejection. I never really used the other fancy trackpad features so I got over it pretty quick. Having said that, before libinput I was ready to return my laptop, because the palm rejection was so horrendous with synaptics.
rataata_jr 8y ago
I care! We need this.
sonnyblarney 8y ago
The touchpad on my macbook pro is just such an amazing feature, so intuitive. So 'just right' ... and consider that it's a primary form of interface. Everybody should be doing this yesterday, it's one of the most obviously good things going.
- isostatic 8y ago
  > The touchpad on my macbook pro is just such an amazing feature, so intuitive. So 'just right' Do you find the original scrolling mechanism, or the reversed scrolling mechanism, to be "just right"?
  - sneak 8y ago
    The original one is the reversed one. Fingers go up, content goes down. That’s wrong as anyone who has used a phone or tablet can tell you. They fixed it, so now it is indeed “just right”.
    - cpeterso 8y ago
      It took me about two days to adapt to "natural scrolling" (reversed) and I would never go back. :) You can reverse the scroll direction on Windows with a PowerShell command: https://superuser.com/questions/310681/inverting-direction-of-mouse-scroll-wheel/364353#364353 https://superuser.com/questions/310681/inverting-direction-o...
    - isostatic 8y ago
      Depends if you think you're moving the document, or moving the viewport. Touchscreen behaviour is touching the document and moving it up, while your view remains the same. Traditional scroll behavior is that you're moving the view of your document down while the document itself doesn't move. Either way, one method is "the original one", the other method is the opposite, or reversed, from the original method.
      - madeofpalk 8y ago
101km 8y ago
I have been using 12" MacBooks since they came out because I live out of a backpack and travel a lot. I cannot find anything comparable in terms of size/weight/battery and build quality. Especially the trackpad, nothing is remotely close. Otherwise I'd get that and put Arch on it. People complain Apple is expensive, not so sure. The TCO may actually be less because of the high resale value. It is also more convenient. More than once when faced with crossing an annoying border (TSA, sigh) I'd sell the Macbook at my origin and simply pickup a new one at the destination. Thirty minutes in-and-out of the Apple store, they all seem to have exceptionally fast wifi, and setup handled via a curl-to-bash of mine gets me exactly back to where I started, down to the sessions.. Since my points of origin usually have higher Apple prices due to currency/taxes, I end up accidentally eking out a profit after months of use per machine. If you can't be arsed with the above consider this: Their retail global presence is getting to be quite complete, even coming to Samsung land (Seoul, behold: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt4ldH5vQCQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt4ldH5vQCQ) and Tel Aviv finally along with some others. Most big airport hub cities will have an Apple store close by. Stuff gets broken or stolen and yet with this setup I'm generally never 24 hours away from my exact laptop setup... There is no alternative. I feel trapped.
- trosi 8y ago
  Wouldn't it be easier to just wipe the drive before TSA?
  - DennisAleynikov 8y ago
    yeah if you're going through the trouble of selling and buying a new mac it really seems a drive wipe is more than sufficient but I may be missing something. in general traveling without a computer is easier than travelling with one.
    - reacharavindh 8y ago
      I can see how selling a used MacBook(purchased in the USA from a state without state taxes) could just be sold off as a used item in say Europe, before returning back to the US. The difference in cost could actually be a net positive. Now, if all your files live in the cloud, and you have your setup automated completely, why not?
deleted 8y ago
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secure 8y ago
I would very much appreciate MacBook-level touchpad support in Linux.
maaaats 8y ago
I don't think the trackpad is uniquely good on MacBooks. What I miss after switching however is BetterTouchTool. That supercharged what was a trackpad basically only used for scroll and single/right clicks to something awesome.
bengale 8y ago
I wonder when he switches back in a year whether the time will feel like a worthwhile investment or just happy to have really showed them and their Touch Bar.
emsy 8y ago
Usually when people set me up for high expectations, I end up getting disappointed. In the case of the Macbook touchpad, my expecations were actually exceeded. I use Bootcamp a lot for some of my projects, and the touchpad support in Windows is so bad, I can't wait to go back to Mac Os (other than that, I'm pretty much OS agnostic).
- harrygeez 8y ago
  There's now a 3rd party precision touchpad driver that works surprisingly well for MacBooks. Unfortunately it's CPU-bound and high CPU load can cause the touchpad to be unresponsive. Setting CPU affinity to high partially mitigates the problem though https://github.com/imbushuo/mac-precision-touchpad https://github.com/imbushuo/mac-precision-touchpad
sneak 8y ago
It would also be amazing to have a linux distro that has excellent, first-class support for recent Apple computers. No such thing has existed for years. It’s terrible that we are all trusting closed-source FileVault. I would donate to such an effort.
sz4kerto 8y ago
Interesting that touchpad problems affect _many_ users, it's been a source of pain and complaints for many years and the community can't throw together e.g. $100k to pay a dev to develop a good enough driver.
micheljansen 8y ago
The touchpad experience of the Mac is where vertical integration really shines. The touchpad is so good precisely because there are not hundreds of hardware variants to support. Just the one that Apple used in their past X years of MacBooks (so never more than a hand-full). And they make their own OS and drivers. Doing this for all laptops Linux could possibly run on is almost impossible. It’s a shame that touchpad (or laptop) vendors do not see good drivers as a competitive advantage. Sounds like a lot of people would buy a laptop just for its touchpad (though probably not enough to justify investment from manufacturers, so it seems).
- tbrock 8y ago
  There cannot be THAT many different touch pads or drivers for them out there that this is impossible. I bet there are only three or four types of main brands at most which probably all come from the same factory in China. It’s not like every time a new pc laptop comes out the dell and HP folks say: “Yee haw! Roll up yer sleeves boys, it’s time to write another touchpad driver!” That’s just insanity.
  - fbender 8y ago
    Not knowing how any of this works, I think best would be having a driver that translates the raw signals into an intermediate, near-native form, i.e. basically provide a standard range X-Y-Z vector (z for Pointer intensity) with good enough (very high) resolution per touch point. Single-Touch devices will only ever get one touch point, those that have no concept of intensity will have a constant or binary Z value. Those measuring pointer-size can set the Z-value accordingly (that‘s how I think intensity is measured anyway). Then allow per-device configs with (basically) calibration curves. Allow for different kinds of curves (discrete value interpolation, Bezier, you name it). This enables the driver to support a lot of different devices. Bonus points if the driver can tell the firmware about the calibrations (I‘d bet quite a few touchpads have their own logic built-in). Also the driver must support some curve and noise dampening as well as progressive acceleration (basically inflating calibrated numbers with higher speed of moving touch points and rapid succession of the same gesture) and thus also understand some „higher level“ gesture logic, e.g. to properly support the right feeling for touchpad scrolling as Macs do.
nkkollaw 8y ago
Yes, definitely. Depending on the distribution, touchpads on Linux are between unusable and bad. False touches are expecially annoying while you're typing a paper and you palm touches the border of the touchpad. I often disable the touchpad completely, or at least while a key is being pressed, with a few milliseconds delay.
batteryhorse 8y ago
I've wanted to do this as well. I came to the conclusion that you'll need to bypass the X windows input system and read the device directly, none of the current solutions (like libinput, mtrack, or synaptics) would work satisfactorily. And integrating it with Gtk or Qt will never work well because of the structure imposed by those frameworks (Cocoa/ObjC is a much more flexible framework) I was able to write a prototype version of things like a tableview or image viewer that gets input directly from the touchpad device (that draws straight to an OpenGL texture or pixmap). The problem is that you'll never be able to integrate this with Gtk and Qt, it just doesn't fit together. And working within those two frameworks is kind of hell. Generally, gestures are not discrete, you can go halfway through a gesture and change your mind, but you'll still get graphical feedback from the UI. That's part of the joy of using the touchpad. But it's just easier to write it from scratch than to add it to Gtk or Qt. For me personally, it's not a huge problem because I generally avoid Gtk and Qt apps if at all possible and make my own UI's, but I don't see it gaining widespread adoption so I don't know if it's worth the effort.
- ProZsolt 8y ago
  Can you show your solution?
deltron3030 8y ago
Are the Linux touchpad drivers developed apart, or together with other input methods, like touch (e.g. KDE Plasma)? How is the state of touch on desktop Linux, does it work fluidly? If yes, the drivers that handle touch might be usable to improve touchpad performance.
paulsmal 8y ago
It's been a year now I've switched from mac to linux. Using libinput-gestures[0] was quite nice, but eventually I changed by workflow to use keyboard shortcuts more. [0] https://github.com/bulletmark/libinput-gestures https://github.com/bulletmark/libinput-gestures
- albsod 8y ago
  I've also installed libinput-gestures and I'm using it in a GNOME 3.28.2 Xorg session (with "natural" scrolling disabled) on a MBP 11,1 with the configuration below. I feel this is pretty close to a macOS experience. # Move to next/prev workspace gesture swipe down 4 _internal ws_up gesture swipe up 4 _internal ws_down # Browser go forward/back gesture swipe right xdotool key alt+Right gesture swipe left xdotool key alt+Left # Toggle Activities overview gesture swipe up 3 xdotool key super+s gesture swipe down 3 xdotool key super+s # Zoom in/out (works in e.g. Firefox, Chromium, Terminal) gesture pinch in xdotool key ctrl+minus gesture pinch out xdotool key ctrl+plus
- rhodysurf 8y ago
  I took the work from that project and turned it into a Gnome Extension to allow for some (super basic) tweaking of trackpad gestures through a GUI. https://github.com/mpiannucci/gnome-shell-extended-gestures https://github.com/mpiannucci/gnome-shell-extended-gestures Its super basic and doesnt have all the features I want it to yet cuz of time. It works well enough though and doesnt need to do any work on the actual drivers to function.
scandox 8y ago
I'd certainly contribute to a fund to raise money for a way of making the internet easily browse-able using the keyboard. Then I would not need a pointing or scrolling device at ALL. Which would be heaven.
- ealhad 8y ago
  Have you tried Vimium[0]? It brings vim-like shortcuts to your browser. Despite what the Readme says, I find it perfectly usable on Firefox. [0]: https://github.com/philc/vimium https://github.com/philc/vimium
  - scandox 8y ago
    Thanks I will try that out though my Emacs-hands may get confused.
    - scandox 8y ago
      I think maybe this is the problem I would pay $100,000 to solve / improve? https://imgur.com/a/7axkPSW https://imgur.com/a/7axkPSW
      - qeng-ho 8y ago
        Switch to using numbers for the quick links and you can type the text of the link to narrow down the search for the quick link.
        ealhad 8y ago
        Absolutely! I wonder why this isn't the default...
        scandox 8y ago
        And I also just realised how link filtering works by typing the first letter to only see some. So that is pretty swift also. Thanks for this.
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fotcorn 8y ago
Is the touchpad driver in the macOS kernel? If yes, the kernel itself is open source, would it be crazy to try to extract the driver from there and make it Linux compatible? Other question: When are you actually using the touchpad? I use my notebook 99% of the time with a screen + keyboard/mouse. Next question: Can we get to the level of a Macbook touchpad only with software? Is there no magic sauce inside the hardware itself? How does the touchpad feel when installing Windows or Linux on the Mac?
- J0-nas 8y ago
  No idea. I can only speak for myself. But in now 7 years I never connected a keyboard or mouse to my 2011 MBA. It's keyboard+Touchpad is just so good that I don't need it. Even when I connect to an external display. I'd say no. In my experience other Companies aren't even able to recreate the smooth surface + 'clicking feel' of the Apple touchpad, which is what I value the most. I suspect that they can, but aren't legally allowed due to patterns.
- adamtulinius 8y ago
  I tried running Linux and Windows on a 2009 MacBook. Touchpad felt crap compared to on OS X. Pretty sure the Windows experience was better than the Linux one, though. So software is certainly a part of it. Edit: This is just considering basic movement of the cursor.
- harrygeez 8y ago
  AFAIK macbook's keyboard and touchpad has a dedicated chip to handle user interactions and is possibly part of the firmware. This explains why it works on Apple EFI level and it works smoothly even on high CPU load.
  - ehayes 8y ago
    I use a 1st gen "Magic Trackpad" that works great with my hackintosh. Maybe there's special hardware in a MacBook, but the OS seems to be able to work without it.
  - peterburkimsher 8y ago
maggit 8y ago
Yes, please do! I've spent some time researching this as well, and to me it seems like the author has missed one thing; the Mac touchpad hardware is so much better than other touchpad hardware. (As I understand it, the competition is barred from making similar touchpads due to patents) I have been running Linux on MacBook Pros for many years, and the touchpad is a constant source of disappointment. For the effort to be worthwhile to me, the goal would have to include getting Apple's touchpads working excellently in Linux. I would definitely participate in crowdfunding this effort. (Kickstarter or otherwise)
- chi3 8y ago
  Microsoft's Surface Book comes very close actually, so while the MBPs are still ahead, the gap is getting smaller!
  - Tepix 8y ago
    The Dell XPS 13 touchpad hardware isn't too bad either. It should be bigger though.
    - dijit 8y ago
      My precision 5520 touchpad actually feels very good. It's not MacBook grade but it's /very/ close.
    - deleted 8y ago
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    - auscompgeek 8y ago
      If you're looking for a large touchpad, you don't have to look any further than the HP Spectre x360, which has a touchpad literally the size of a modestly-sized smartphone.
    - grubles 8y ago
      I have a Dell XPS 15 and it's on par with any Apple product I've used and it does not have the Apple tax nor touch bar.
ahartmetz 8y ago
A cheap mouse allows finer and faster control than the best touchpad that currently exists, so... I plug in a mouse. (Don't believe me? Play an FPS game with touchpad against a mouse user.) That said, Synaptics touchpad support on Linux is bad. In my case, it's the touchpad on a Thinkpad T440s. It can run in a legacy/standard protocol mode or a "modern" protocol mode. Linux supposedly supports the latter (where palm detection should work) since a few years, but I don't see it being used or palm detection working.
- yabb 8y ago
  The macbook touchpad is so good that after a few months of practice, I routinely used to top the leaderboard in cod4 hardcore free for all using double tap to aim down the sight, shoot with index finger and aim with middle finger. I even got good at quickscoping with the Barrett 50 Cal, again using only the macbook touchpad. Even mile high club on veteran was not out of reach
  - kimdotcom 8y ago
    I would love to watch a split-screen video of this, CoD screen and your finger gestures during play.
- nottorp 8y ago
  Item 1: It's undeniable that the mouse is more precise, but it tethers you to a desk. One with enough space for a mouse. Not always feasible. Item 2: You're mentioning Thinkpads. Try a touchpad on OS X, then come back. The difference is enormous. You can actually use the GUI without a mouse and without being annoyed, it's the only laptop/OS combination where that works.
  - bluecalm 8y ago
    Every time I use my gf's Mac I am instantly annoyed by the touchpad. Yeah, it's better than the one on my Thinkpad but there I use the nipple which is faster, more precise and quicker to reach also I can scroll around using a button under my thump + nipple. Mac lacking page-up/page-down keys is annoying if you need to do a lot of scrolling/coming back to keyboard/scrolling.
naibafo 8y ago
Yes, please!
rrrazdan 8y ago
I would pay good money for this and other improvements to make Linux even come close to Mac (HiDPI support, simple set of utilities, etc)
mschuster91 8y ago
What I find the biggest advantage is the hardware (as another poster here does), but not only due to its superior capabilities in gesture recognition. I have yet to find a non-Macbook touchpad which is: - decently sized: all Windows/Linux laptops I have encountered have ridiculously small touchpads, some not even a quarter of a Macbook touchpad in size. I have huge hands, tiny touchpads are awful when two fingers are wider than the touchpad. - decent material: AFAIK, Apple is the only manufacturer using a glass overlay on the touchpad. The Windows scene exclusively uses plastic, which gets greasy after a couple of months for me. For the keyboards it's similar, Apple simply uses a material that does not get greasy... - decent layouting: MBP touchpads are nearly flush with the casing, which means one can use its full surface area including the edges. Windows touchpads all are recessed, worst I had was 5mm - as evidenced by the grease-free borders I lost about 25% of the already small touchpad.
- davidandgoliath 8y ago
  afaik, dell / lenovo uses glass (at least on the xps / x1 that I have). Lenovo has them covered in a matte finish of some sort, but it's glass.
- vinay427 8y ago
  None of your points apply to various newer Windows laptops or even laptops from years ago, such as my T450s. However, the smoothness still isn't up to par with a modern MacBook. I use the TrackPoint anyway, but the trackpad seems decent.
  - mschuster91 8y ago
    Of course it's anecdata, but it's still valid when I go through the local electronics supermarkets. Plastic everywhere, nothing comparable with a MacBook (no matter if on touchpad, keyboard or casing).
    - vinay427 8y ago
      I strongly prefer the quality plastic exterior with fiberglass and carbon fiber construction of my ThinkPad. It feels far sturdier than a MacBook Pro which flexes quite a bit (yes, I've had one before), it doesn't heat up like the MacBook and warm my lap, and it's far more resistant to scratches and general wear and tear in my experience. The build quality of the MacBook hinges really throws me off as well. They're actually sturdy-feeling metal on my laptop, while Apple seems to cheap out where metal is actually useful. Just some thoughts to consider. :)
setzer22 8y ago
This is something I've been wanting for a long time and I'd definitely donate money to support such a project!
ToFab123 8y ago
Microsoft did it and wrote a driver that makes a PC touchpad just as amazing as the one you find on a MacBook. There is a world as different between using that driver and the standard synaptics driver most laptops ships with. For sure you want the same on a Linux box.
- oaiey 8y ago
  This is a missing detail here. Microsoft created around the Win8 timeline a specification for what they call "Precision Touchpad". The surface and e.g. the Dell precision use it. The vendors jumped it as well, but industry like always is super slow adopting. The key is to support that spec.
- opencl 8y ago
  It's really annoying that Microsoft's precision drivers work with the vast majority of recent Synaptics touchpads and yet vendors keep shipping this hardware with the terrible Synaptics drivers. You can manually install the precision drivers on these machines but then Windows Update will often 'helpfully' decide to revert back to the manufacturer drivers.
dvirsky 8y ago
I have an Apple Magic Trackpad 2 attached to my Linux workstation, and configured using synaptics and a custom kernel driver. The experience is almost good, but not quite there. The most annoying thing is scroll zoom in some apps (mostly Chrome), that makes hitting ctrl while the trackpad is "coasting", result in zooming to oblivion. I've sort of solved it with a chrome extension that disabled scroll zooming. But in general it just doesn't feel as smooth and took a lot of time tinkering with to get to reasonable results. I'll gladly contribute a bit to a kickstarter or something.
sammoth 8y ago
I tried a MacBook touchpad in the Apple store and I didn't get what the fuss was about. It has that annoying feature where when you click the cursor freezes for some period of time, which stops you clicking on multiple things in quick succession. It didn't feel any more precise to me in terms of pointing. I realise it has gesture support that works in close harmony with OS features, but just in terms of pointing and clicking it was nothing special.
- Froyoh 8y ago
  It's so responsive and smooth, especially double-finger scrolling
  - brandonsometig 8y ago
    HP Chromebooks are exactly the same. It's all down to the driver.
peterburkimsher 8y ago
I'll volunteer 2 months full-time development for free, with a few conditions. - I'm looking for a job in New Zealand, Australia, or Canada. Not Seattle (sorry Bill). I'd stop job hunting to work on this, so someone else will have to find me a job. - I'd develop for the MacBook Pro 2014, because that's my hardware. Only one Linux distro (probably Ubuntu). - Weekly check-in emails (maybe twice a week). A plan set out at the beginning with the deliverables for each week. Am I qualified? No idea. Currently I work at OSE, a microSD card manufacturer in Taiwan, where I've bit-banged control systems protocols and done big data analysis. The closest side project I did to this is KeyMouSerial, which logs keyboard & mouse movements on my laptop, sends them to an Arduino, which behaves like a keyboard for a Raspberry Pi. I'm disillusioned with Apple now, and wanting to hop to Linux. I also want to port iTunes and AppleScript, though I think there's less demand for those two.
- tzahola 8y ago
  Sorry for being off-topic, but I can't resist asking why on Earth would you want to port iTunes and AppleScript? Everyone I know (except the HN user actsasbuffoon) loathes iTunes, while AppleScript is just... silly, compared to other scripting languages.
  - peterburkimsher 8y ago
    I miss the old iTunes 10 interface, which I use as a database manager (I like smart playlists, playlist folders, and Genre > Artist > Album columns). AppleScript because it has so many APIs. BetterTouchTool makes heavy use of it. I taught myself how to code in it when I was 13, and I still use it now.
    - tzahola 8y ago
      >AppleScript because it has so many APIs. You mean the commands you can use on apps like iTunes, Finder, Photos, etc.? Those are not AppleScript-specific per se (AFAIK there used to be an option to write Automator scripts in JS). You'd need the Linux/Gnome/KDE equivalent of the Open Scripting Architecture ( https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/AppleScript/Conceptual/AppleScriptX/Concepts/osa.html https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Ap... ) with active participation from app developers. Sounds like a huge overtaking.
H1Supreme 8y ago
Maybe I'm not as sensitive to the differences, but after using Macbooks since 2009, I recently picked up a 13" Dell Inspiron 7000. I put Ubuntu (Mate) on it first thing, and was actually surprised how well the trackpad worked. I was fully prepared for it to be horrible, but it's really not. Maybe I got lucky with this purchase? Maybe the driver isn't so bad? I don't know. I have experienced awful trackpads from other models, so I'm not immune to the effects of a bad one. But, this has been smooth sailing so far.
HeadsUpHigh 8y ago
Absolutely no. I never liked the macbook touchpad. I tried using it a couple times. It really felt like they had to shoehorn every action into a gesture to the point where a lot of them felt extremely cumbersome. For example it took me a few tries until I managed to tile windows. I'm using a regular non-luxury laptop. I'm mostly using it with a mouse because the trackpad goes off every now and then( it's a hardware issue). But when it works it's fine. Cursor tracking is good with no artificial accel etc( meaning it goes exactly where I ask it to go), two finger scrolling works... The only complain is that pinch to zoom doesn't work and that the default button arrangement is a bit cumbersome.
- dilap 8y ago
  I think you're definitely a special case. For me the MacBook touchpad is my favorite input method, better than even a mouse -- because it's very precise, and the gestures are very handy! Generally, most people are very fond of mac touchpads. So, I'd say from a linux strategic perspective, or the perspectie of the greater good, the answer is yes!
  - pmontra 8y ago
    I'm another special case. The only good thing of the mac touchpad is pinch to zoom integrated into many applications. I really don't want gestures. Scrolling and moving the pointer on my HP laptops always worked really well. Maybe it's a HP thing. However I remeber that the same touchpad worked much better with Ubuntu 8.04 than with Windows XP. Two finger scrolling instead of scrolling along the edge, among the other things. I disable clicking on the touchpad and I use the 3 hardware buttons because they're much better at being buttons and how would I middle click and paste with a touchpad? Plus maybe the cursor nudge from the article. No, the touchpad won't sell me a Mac.
    - dilap 8y ago
      Someone needs to make a "touchpad olympics" so we can see who is really more nimble ;-) But yeah, these things can definitely be pretty personal. Also, you get used to one thing and it can be very jarring to use something else. But man I've never used any PC that even felt close to me. And I used to use PC notebooks -- switching to mac was immediately a "holy shit, I'm not plugging in a mouse anymore" moment for me. I've used a couple HP notebooks but nothing recently. Maybe it's gotten better...
jnmandal 8y ago
I would absolutely fund and support this project. It should be done. Personally I am fine with my touchpad experience right now on arch but it can be improved and it should be. These are the offerings we need to make linux more mainstream.
shaan7 8y ago
I've worked with a 2013 MBP 15" for 4 years and then switched to XPS 13 + Kubuntu. The touchpad is butter smooth - be it taps, clicks, or two finger scrolling (and three finger gestures thanks to comfortable-swipe). Any XPS 13 (9360) users around who feel the same?
- k_ 8y ago
  Dell E7440 here with arch linux. I had never been a touchpad user before, but now it's been 10 months since I used a mouse. I even began to play mouse games with it and it's mostly fine too.
Sholmesy 8y ago
I have this on one of my "Todos", as its my biggest frustration. I must be underestimating just how much it takes to do this, because no one gets close to Apple in my opinion.
hathym 8y ago
How about make your smartphone a smart touchpad? I will use it right aways, maybe even buy a dedicated cheap smartphone just for that
draw_down 8y ago
Whatever their other faults, Macs are the only computers with trackpads worth a shit.
haspok 8y ago
Instead of starting a new project from scratch, why not reanimate synaptics and fix the annoying bugs? Are there licensing issues? Is it not open source? Or is there some underlying technical problem that makes this hard/unfeasible?
nneonneo 8y ago
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.)? (2) A matter of the drivers/userspace stack not decoding motions into useful gestures accurately? (3) Or a lack of support from normal applications or the window server for touch gestures and touch inputs? In kernel space there’s definitely a lot we could crib from Android to get started quickly - since that’s the low-hanging fruit I wonder if anyone’s already done it. The userspace stuff is a totally different affair...
- dmix 8y ago
  I've customized Linux for touchpads on a couple laptops now (note: Macbooks are terrible choices for using linux on, using Thinkpad/Dell XPS is 100x easier driver wise). The current drivers support about 90% of what Macbook's can do in my experience. As the OP said in the article, it's "good enough", just not perfect. 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.
  - jolmg 8y ago
    As someone who's never used a Mac, what's that remaining 10%? What am I missing out on? OP says he needs to "to click in the bottom right corner to effect a right click" when using synaptics, but I've always just tapped 3 fingers to do right clicks.
- s73v3r_ 8y ago
  "It would be great to know why the Linux drivers aren’t as good as the Mac touchpad drivers." 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."
hajile 8y ago
Has there been any consideration of the driver Google uses for the pixelbook? The touch experience is at least as good as a macbook and I think it's superior.
rconti 8y ago
"but the Touchbar Era has taught me that it sucks to have my user experience tied to the whims of a singleminded hardware company." He's negative on Apple, sure, but this should really read as "it sucks to have my user experience tied to the whims of a company". And that makes a better OSS tagline anyway.
oldgun 8y ago
I'm actually very interested in all the input devices for Linux. I feel like Desktop Linux is not as good on user input devices, compared to MacOS/Windows, e.g. touch screen, hand gesture, stylus support, and of course touchpad. Would like to see them all improved. If there's such an initiative I'll definitely donate.
newscracker 8y ago
When I switched to Linux (because the Mac was old enough not to get updates from Apple), the thing I missed most was support for the external Magic Trackpad (the first version with the removable batteries). I searched around and found some solutions, but they were all outdated and/or abandoned, and none of them could get me all the features and gestures that Apple supported natively since about 8-9 years ago. Though Linux drivers have improved a lot over time, there are still some areas like this that don't get attention. Not that there isn't a large enough user base, but for many other reasons. I would gladly support a crowd funded project by reliable people on such things.
wbharding 8y ago
Original blog poster here (hi!). I'm pleased to find this motherlode of detail-oriented perfectionists here on HN and in my blog comments. This affirms my original question of whether it's a goal worth pursuing. Step one complete. 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?
- jcrben 8y ago
  I hope you look into updating libinput first. https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/libinput/libinput https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/libinput/libinput Let's not add more not invented here without at least doing some solid good faith effort to join the existing efforts.
scarejunba 8y ago
Use bountysource. I'll chip on a bit of you do that. That's how neovim got started and that worked out well
ChuckMcM 8y ago
I agree that the trackpad on the macbook pro is the gold standard, but the author needs to effectively define the requirements in terms of something testable. Otherwise they will be stuck in a bikeshedding world where everyone is arguing. This doesn't require any coding expertise, but it does require the ability to write requirements in a way that more than one person can interpret them correctly.
p3llin0r3 8y ago
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.
dbg31415 8y ago
I'd be happy if Macs running Windows via Bootcamp had their touchpads work anywhere close to how they work under MacOS... identical hardware, but the software just falls short. Microsoft has a lot of money... makes me think this isn't a simple issue to solve.
matt4077 8y ago
It‘s insane to see how the author is unwilling to give the touch bar a chance, even after they themselves gives exhaustive proof of Apple’s expertise in UI.
curioussavage 8y ago
I am in the same boat as the author. This is why own machine is a chromebook too. Gallium OS (the distro with chromebook fixes) uses the driver from chromeos and it is way better. I would donate at least $100 towards this and would contribute if possible. Maybe a more technical paper on the history and current state of things would be nice too.
- appleiigs 8y ago
  Chromebook trackpad is great. Closest to Macbook experience I’ve had.
znpy 8y ago
In this post: problems I didn't know existed.

433 points by macco 8y ago

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 enjoy spending a week on trying to make something work under Linux just so I can feel better. Or the patience where I waited for 1.5 years just to have proper support for the AGP slot on my motherboard. I want a Linux system that works out of the box and has no problems with standard features like a touchpad. Under Windows 10 the new precision drivers are fantastic, very close to Mac comfort. Whoever creates something similar under Linux deserves a Nobel Prize and a monument.

mkirklions 8y ago
We are all talking about desktop? Ubuntu desktop is annoying IMO. Server is the only linux worth running. Windows has a superior desktop experience. Ive made serious attempts to use linux desktops since ubuntu 7 and the annoyance factor of getting things to 'work' and the hostile community is really offputting.
- MrLeftHand 8y ago
  I feel your pain. Ubuntu Desktop was my preferred go to distro not too long ago. Using 16.10 was nice and I managed to get the touchpad working in a reasonable way with xinput. Then 18 came along and everything went to hell. All the properties changed and some even disappeared. And of course the ones missing were the ones I actually needed to make my touchpad work in a way that it was comfortable to use. After that I just jumped ship. I didn't wanted to spend another week to figure out everything again. I happily choose Linux when it comes to servers and other non-desktop related work, but I am very disappointed how it lacks user friendliness and ease of use. 10-20 years back I would have said, that laptops are a niche platform and that's why it has a hard time supporting hardware. But it's 2018 and laptops are becoming mainstream in everyday use. Not being able to support the primary pointing hardware on a platform so popular is a death sentence. And don't get me started on discrete GPUs...
  - trash_panda 8y ago
    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 mouse. No touchpad is as good as a decent external mouse (decent != expensive, mine is $30). If you want to see an abysmal differences between touchpads, compare a Macbook one with the Lenovo's X220 touchpad. The X220 is the worst touchpad I've ever used, but it is still my main computer and I love it. People talk about Mac's build quality, when I think they should be referring to its industrial design, which I get is very appealing to the senses. Now, the X220 has serious build quality. You couln't break it if you wanted to, and if you do break it, almost every part is < $100 on eBay and easy to repair. My point is the following, and as other commenter said; I think people choose Macs before they like it better, it suits their image and are willing to pay their pricetag. I know people need to justify their choices as if Macs are the only objective solution that fits their use cases, but I find this hard to believe. I understand that everyone has its valid reasons behinds every choice they make, but what bothers me (I know it shouldn't but who cares) is when that people bash on Linux and other hardware manufacturers just because they don't LIKE that OS/computer. I don't LIKE macOS/Macs and I don't them, that doesn't mean they are not good systems. I just CHOOSE to not use them because MY reasons. Nowadays most systems offer more than acceptable user experiences out of the box, whether its a Linux/Windows/macOS box on whatever hardware. The thing is that people get really picky and justify their decisions by diminishing other manufacturers/systems. I believe people are afraid to say "I bought a Mac because I like them! f* you!"
    - jandrese 8y ago
      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/disable xinput for example), but sometimes it just plain never works. I've been all over StackExchange and similar places but on some laptops none of the proposed solutions work. I've opened bug reports, but it's hard for developers to fix it when they can't replicate the problem. Sometimes you only get half functionality, like the cursor won't move but it will still click, moving your text cursor to random places when the palm lightly brushes the touchpad and it registers as a click. On some laptops I just have to pack in a mouse and disable the touchpad entirely. That's not an acceptable solution. I'm really hoping that Ubuntu 18 avoids some of this nonsense.
- chupasaurus 8y ago
  There are more than 2 desktop environments for Linux you've tried if my guess is right (since you've tried Ubuntu). Imo KDE is light years ahead than Windows but requires to set it up for your taste.
  - MrLeftHand 8y ago
    Can KDE do something about touchpad support whist the underlying X and kernel support for the hardware is absolute rubbish? It was a while ago I used KDE, but from what I can remember there was no option to fine tune touchpad behaviour. I like that under Linux you have a freedom of choice when it comes to window managers. KDE, Gnome2-3, XFCE, Cinnamon, you name it. It's awesome to have so many tools for one problem. Hell, I even liked Unity. I think it was a very clean and easy to use wmanager. But no matter how fancy-ass the wrapping is, if the problem is underneath it.
    - jpetso 8y ago
      KDE does have to configuration in its system settings, but it obviously only relies on the standard X/kernel drivers and is only a convenience GUI for setting these options.
    - haspok 8y ago
      As I found it out the hard way, xinput is pretty bare and does not support the settings required to make the touchpad usable on an XPS 9343, for example. The settings for minimum and maximum acceleration are missing (and so these options are greyed out on the KDE GUI). They are defaulted to MIN and MAX respectively. Solution: install Synaptics, open KDE panel, set both acceleration settings to a low value, enjoy.
- PascLeRasc 8y ago
  What did you think of Elementary OS?
- koffiezet 8y ago
  > Server is the only linux worth running Also: > Linux is the only server worth running :P
dgregd 8y ago
> Under Windows 10 the new precision drivers are fantastic So it would be reasonable to limit that new Linux driver to support only Windows Precision compatible touch-pads. It seems that variety of different touch-pad hardware is causing that problems with creating a good Linux driver.
- Qub3d 8y ago
  That is what the article suggests; creating a driver that supports most popular devices within the last 3 years or so. Personally, I'm on board with this. We shouldn't be as concerned about supporting a ThinkPad circa 1994 if it means poorer performance across the boards. Libinput can be the jack-of-all-trades with "good enough" performance for the outliers.
jolmg 8y ago
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.
- MrLeftHand 8y ago
  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.
  - jolmg 8y ago
    > 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. That was my experience with Ubuntu, too. They add a lot of infrastructure for some misguided sense of convenience, partly because of their Debian heritage. I switched to Arch and found all layers to be much simpler to understand. Arch's documentation explains layer by layer and hardly touches upstream projects when packaging them instead of expecting you to use an interface that works only for their distro. For example, Arch's installation guides you to setup basic DNS on /etc/resolv.conf which is read directly by libc domain resolving functions. If DNS is not working, I know the most basic mechanism responsible. There's no, "/etc/network/interfaces looks right, but whatever reads it is not reading it!" problem. Anyway, if Ubuntu's not right for you, then maybe another distro is. A bad experience with Ubuntu doesn't necessarily mean that it would be the same with all distros.

opdahl 8y ago

If someone could actually make this, I would gladly pay an annual subscription to access it. Almost the only reason I'm still buying MacBooks is because of the touchpad, and if I could get that on Linux I probably would just switch to a normal PC.

trosi 8y ago
Same here, I would gladly pay a subscription or send a generous donation to the Kickstarter if it happens.
mkirklions 8y ago
Who is on this website? I thought these were mostly programmers, but I cannot picture a programmer using a touchpad instead of a mouse.
- rahoulb 8y ago
  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.
  - megaman22 8y ago
    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.
    - IshKebab 8y ago
      Gestures on Macs are not flaky. That's kind of the whole point of this discussion.
    - mattl 8y ago
      A mouse is fine in an environment where you also have an external monitor and maybe an external keyboard too.

isostatic 8y ago

Am I the only one who prefers the nipples on thinkpads?

rataata_jr 8y ago
Uuuuuuhhhhh... Wut? You use that?
lokedhs 8y ago
No, but you are probably in the minority. I have one on the Dell laptop I'm using (which also has a touchpad). 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. I first tried that device on the first Thinkpads that had it, back in the 90's or whenever it was. I have always had the same reaction to it. How do you use it? Is this just a matter of getting used to it, and if it is, how long does it take?
- gjvc 8y ago
  Using a concave rubber top to the TrackPoint helps me greatly.
- chx 8y ago
  The Dell ones are vastly inferior to the ThinkPad ones. While I do not know the ones in the 20, the last ten or so years I worked solely with TrackPoint first under Linux now under Windows 10. Under Windows 10, there's a Mouse tab in Control Panel, there's a sensitivity slider and I found it's best to have it just one notch below fastest. The default makes me feel I am wrestling with my laptop.
  - lokedhs 8y ago
    I see. I haven't tried the Thinkpads since before they were sold to Lenovo, so perhaps they are superior. I am in the market for a new laptop, so perhaps I should give them a chance. Not really for the pointers, but they do seem to be fine laptops overall.

sabarasaba 8y ago

I used to care a lot about this kind of things about two years ago when I switched from mac to linux. But to be honest, you just kind of get used to it after a while and its not really that much of a deal breaker anymore. I spend most of my time in terminals, and I use i3wm so most of my workflow doesnt involve using the touchpad at all. The only use case i have for it is when using chrome, but even so theres vimium and similar things to help you navigate around without leaving your keyboard.

de_watcher 8y ago
I've read the blog post and the comments, nobody says what are the features they're talking about. I've only understood the "cursor nudge".
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
androidgirl 8y ago
I relate to this comment. I've been using an old HP 8460p for the past few years, and almost always prefer to use the keyboard. Even without i3 there's things like tmux that make it much easier.
aleph4 8y ago
Same. Maybe it's just my specific track pad (Precision 5520), but libinput works great for me, with really good palm rejection. I never really used the other fancy trackpad features so I got over it pretty quick. Having said that, before libinput I was ready to return my laptop, because the palm rejection was so horrendous with synaptics.

rataata_jr 8y ago

I care! We need this.

sonnyblarney 8y ago

The touchpad on my macbook pro is just such an amazing feature, so intuitive. So 'just right' ... and consider that it's a primary form of interface. Everybody should be doing this yesterday, it's one of the most obviously good things going.

isostatic 8y ago
> The touchpad on my macbook pro is just such an amazing feature, so intuitive. So 'just right' Do you find the original scrolling mechanism, or the reversed scrolling mechanism, to be "just right"?
- sneak 8y ago
  The original one is the reversed one. Fingers go up, content goes down. That’s wrong as anyone who has used a phone or tablet can tell you. They fixed it, so now it is indeed “just right”.
  - cpeterso 8y ago
    It took me about two days to adapt to "natural scrolling" (reversed) and I would never go back. :) You can reverse the scroll direction on Windows with a PowerShell command: https://superuser.com/questions/310681/inverting-direction-of-mouse-scroll-wheel/364353#364353 https://superuser.com/questions/310681/inverting-direction-o...
  - isostatic 8y ago
    Depends if you think you're moving the document, or moving the viewport. Touchscreen behaviour is touching the document and moving it up, while your view remains the same. Traditional scroll behavior is that you're moving the view of your document down while the document itself doesn't move. Either way, one method is "the original one", the other method is the opposite, or reversed, from the original method.
    - madeofpalk 8y ago

101km 8y ago

I have been using 12" MacBooks since they came out because I live out of a backpack and travel a lot. I cannot find anything comparable in terms of size/weight/battery and build quality. Especially the trackpad, nothing is remotely close. Otherwise I'd get that and put Arch on it. People complain Apple is expensive, not so sure. The TCO may actually be less because of the high resale value. It is also more convenient. More than once when faced with crossing an annoying border (TSA, sigh) I'd sell the Macbook at my origin and simply pickup a new one at the destination. Thirty minutes in-and-out of the Apple store, they all seem to have exceptionally fast wifi, and setup handled via a curl-to-bash of mine gets me exactly back to where I started, down to the sessions.. Since my points of origin usually have higher Apple prices due to currency/taxes, I end up accidentally eking out a profit after months of use per machine. If you can't be arsed with the above consider this: Their retail global presence is getting to be quite complete, even coming to Samsung land (Seoul, behold: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt4ldH5vQCQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt4ldH5vQCQ) and Tel Aviv finally along with some others. Most big airport hub cities will have an Apple store close by. Stuff gets broken or stolen and yet with this setup I'm generally never 24 hours away from my exact laptop setup... There is no alternative. I feel trapped.

trosi 8y ago
Wouldn't it be easier to just wipe the drive before TSA?
- DennisAleynikov 8y ago
  yeah if you're going through the trouble of selling and buying a new mac it really seems a drive wipe is more than sufficient but I may be missing something. in general traveling without a computer is easier than travelling with one.
  - reacharavindh 8y ago
    I can see how selling a used MacBook(purchased in the USA from a state without state taxes) could just be sold off as a used item in say Europe, before returning back to the US. The difference in cost could actually be a net positive. Now, if all your files live in the cloud, and you have your setup automated completely, why not?

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

secure 8y ago

I would very much appreciate MacBook-level touchpad support in Linux.

maaaats 8y ago

I don't think the trackpad is uniquely good on MacBooks. What I miss after switching however is BetterTouchTool. That supercharged what was a trackpad basically only used for scroll and single/right clicks to something awesome.

bengale 8y ago

I wonder when he switches back in a year whether the time will feel like a worthwhile investment or just happy to have really showed them and their Touch Bar.

emsy 8y ago

Usually when people set me up for high expectations, I end up getting disappointed. In the case of the Macbook touchpad, my expecations were actually exceeded. I use Bootcamp a lot for some of my projects, and the touchpad support in Windows is so bad, I can't wait to go back to Mac Os (other than that, I'm pretty much OS agnostic).

harrygeez 8y ago
There's now a 3rd party precision touchpad driver that works surprisingly well for MacBooks. Unfortunately it's CPU-bound and high CPU load can cause the touchpad to be unresponsive. Setting CPU affinity to high partially mitigates the problem though https://github.com/imbushuo/mac-precision-touchpad https://github.com/imbushuo/mac-precision-touchpad

sneak 8y ago

It would also be amazing to have a linux distro that has excellent, first-class support for recent Apple computers. No such thing has existed for years. It’s terrible that we are all trusting closed-source FileVault. I would donate to such an effort.

sz4kerto 8y ago

Interesting that touchpad problems affect _many_ users, it's been a source of pain and complaints for many years and the community can't throw together e.g. $100k to pay a dev to develop a good enough driver.

micheljansen 8y ago

The touchpad experience of the Mac is where vertical integration really shines. The touchpad is so good precisely because there are not hundreds of hardware variants to support. Just the one that Apple used in their past X years of MacBooks (so never more than a hand-full). And they make their own OS and drivers. Doing this for all laptops Linux could possibly run on is almost impossible. It’s a shame that touchpad (or laptop) vendors do not see good drivers as a competitive advantage. Sounds like a lot of people would buy a laptop just for its touchpad (though probably not enough to justify investment from manufacturers, so it seems).

tbrock 8y ago
There cannot be THAT many different touch pads or drivers for them out there that this is impossible. I bet there are only three or four types of main brands at most which probably all come from the same factory in China. It’s not like every time a new pc laptop comes out the dell and HP folks say: “Yee haw! Roll up yer sleeves boys, it’s time to write another touchpad driver!” That’s just insanity.
- fbender 8y ago
  Not knowing how any of this works, I think best would be having a driver that translates the raw signals into an intermediate, near-native form, i.e. basically provide a standard range X-Y-Z vector (z for Pointer intensity) with good enough (very high) resolution per touch point. Single-Touch devices will only ever get one touch point, those that have no concept of intensity will have a constant or binary Z value. Those measuring pointer-size can set the Z-value accordingly (that‘s how I think intensity is measured anyway). Then allow per-device configs with (basically) calibration curves. Allow for different kinds of curves (discrete value interpolation, Bezier, you name it). This enables the driver to support a lot of different devices. Bonus points if the driver can tell the firmware about the calibrations (I‘d bet quite a few touchpads have their own logic built-in). Also the driver must support some curve and noise dampening as well as progressive acceleration (basically inflating calibrated numbers with higher speed of moving touch points and rapid succession of the same gesture) and thus also understand some „higher level“ gesture logic, e.g. to properly support the right feeling for touchpad scrolling as Macs do.

nkkollaw 8y ago

Yes, definitely. Depending on the distribution, touchpads on Linux are between unusable and bad. False touches are expecially annoying while you're typing a paper and you palm touches the border of the touchpad. I often disable the touchpad completely, or at least while a key is being pressed, with a few milliseconds delay.

batteryhorse 8y ago

I've wanted to do this as well. I came to the conclusion that you'll need to bypass the X windows input system and read the device directly, none of the current solutions (like libinput, mtrack, or synaptics) would work satisfactorily. And integrating it with Gtk or Qt will never work well because of the structure imposed by those frameworks (Cocoa/ObjC is a much more flexible framework) I was able to write a prototype version of things like a tableview or image viewer that gets input directly from the touchpad device (that draws straight to an OpenGL texture or pixmap). The problem is that you'll never be able to integrate this with Gtk and Qt, it just doesn't fit together. And working within those two frameworks is kind of hell. Generally, gestures are not discrete, you can go halfway through a gesture and change your mind, but you'll still get graphical feedback from the UI. That's part of the joy of using the touchpad. But it's just easier to write it from scratch than to add it to Gtk or Qt. For me personally, it's not a huge problem because I generally avoid Gtk and Qt apps if at all possible and make my own UI's, but I don't see it gaining widespread adoption so I don't know if it's worth the effort.

ProZsolt 8y ago
Can you show your solution?

deltron3030 8y ago

Are the Linux touchpad drivers developed apart, or together with other input methods, like touch (e.g. KDE Plasma)? How is the state of touch on desktop Linux, does it work fluidly? If yes, the drivers that handle touch might be usable to improve touchpad performance.

paulsmal 8y ago

It's been a year now I've switched from mac to linux. Using libinput-gestures[0] was quite nice, but eventually I changed by workflow to use keyboard shortcuts more. [0] https://github.com/bulletmark/libinput-gestures https://github.com/bulletmark/libinput-gestures

albsod 8y ago
I've also installed libinput-gestures and I'm using it in a GNOME 3.28.2 Xorg session (with "natural" scrolling disabled) on a MBP 11,1 with the configuration below. I feel this is pretty close to a macOS experience. # Move to next/prev workspace gesture swipe down 4 _internal ws_up gesture swipe up 4 _internal ws_down # Browser go forward/back gesture swipe right xdotool key alt+Right gesture swipe left xdotool key alt+Left # Toggle Activities overview gesture swipe up 3 xdotool key super+s gesture swipe down 3 xdotool key super+s # Zoom in/out (works in e.g. Firefox, Chromium, Terminal) gesture pinch in xdotool key ctrl+minus gesture pinch out xdotool key ctrl+plus
rhodysurf 8y ago
I took the work from that project and turned it into a Gnome Extension to allow for some (super basic) tweaking of trackpad gestures through a GUI. https://github.com/mpiannucci/gnome-shell-extended-gestures https://github.com/mpiannucci/gnome-shell-extended-gestures Its super basic and doesnt have all the features I want it to yet cuz of time. It works well enough though and doesnt need to do any work on the actual drivers to function.

scandox 8y ago

I'd certainly contribute to a fund to raise money for a way of making the internet easily browse-able using the keyboard. Then I would not need a pointing or scrolling device at ALL. Which would be heaven.

ealhad 8y ago
Have you tried Vimium[0]? It brings vim-like shortcuts to your browser. Despite what the Readme says, I find it perfectly usable on Firefox. [0]: https://github.com/philc/vimium https://github.com/philc/vimium
- scandox 8y ago
  Thanks I will try that out though my Emacs-hands may get confused.
  - scandox 8y ago
    I think maybe this is the problem I would pay $100,000 to solve / improve? https://imgur.com/a/7axkPSW https://imgur.com/a/7axkPSW
    - qeng-ho 8y ago
      Switch to using numbers for the quick links and you can type the text of the link to narrow down the search for the quick link.
      - ealhad 8y ago
        Absolutely! I wonder why this isn't the default...
      - scandox 8y ago
        And I also just realised how link filtering works by typing the first letter to only see some. So that is pretty swift also. Thanks for this.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

fotcorn 8y ago

Is the touchpad driver in the macOS kernel? If yes, the kernel itself is open source, would it be crazy to try to extract the driver from there and make it Linux compatible? Other question: When are you actually using the touchpad? I use my notebook 99% of the time with a screen + keyboard/mouse. Next question: Can we get to the level of a Macbook touchpad only with software? Is there no magic sauce inside the hardware itself? How does the touchpad feel when installing Windows or Linux on the Mac?

J0-nas 8y ago
No idea. I can only speak for myself. But in now 7 years I never connected a keyboard or mouse to my 2011 MBA. It's keyboard+Touchpad is just so good that I don't need it. Even when I connect to an external display. I'd say no. In my experience other Companies aren't even able to recreate the smooth surface + 'clicking feel' of the Apple touchpad, which is what I value the most. I suspect that they can, but aren't legally allowed due to patterns.
adamtulinius 8y ago
I tried running Linux and Windows on a 2009 MacBook. Touchpad felt crap compared to on OS X. Pretty sure the Windows experience was better than the Linux one, though. So software is certainly a part of it. Edit: This is just considering basic movement of the cursor.
harrygeez 8y ago
AFAIK macbook's keyboard and touchpad has a dedicated chip to handle user interactions and is possibly part of the firmware. This explains why it works on Apple EFI level and it works smoothly even on high CPU load.
- ehayes 8y ago
  I use a 1st gen "Magic Trackpad" that works great with my hackintosh. Maybe there's special hardware in a MacBook, but the OS seems to be able to work without it.
- peterburkimsher 8y ago

maggit 8y ago

Yes, please do! I've spent some time researching this as well, and to me it seems like the author has missed one thing; the Mac touchpad hardware is so much better than other touchpad hardware. (As I understand it, the competition is barred from making similar touchpads due to patents) I have been running Linux on MacBook Pros for many years, and the touchpad is a constant source of disappointment. For the effort to be worthwhile to me, the goal would have to include getting Apple's touchpads working excellently in Linux. I would definitely participate in crowdfunding this effort. (Kickstarter or otherwise)

chi3 8y ago
Microsoft's Surface Book comes very close actually, so while the MBPs are still ahead, the gap is getting smaller!
- Tepix 8y ago
  The Dell XPS 13 touchpad hardware isn't too bad either. It should be bigger though.
  - dijit 8y ago
    My precision 5520 touchpad actually feels very good. It's not MacBook grade but it's /very/ close.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - auscompgeek 8y ago
    If you're looking for a large touchpad, you don't have to look any further than the HP Spectre x360, which has a touchpad literally the size of a modestly-sized smartphone.
  - grubles 8y ago
    I have a Dell XPS 15 and it's on par with any Apple product I've used and it does not have the Apple tax nor touch bar.

ahartmetz 8y ago

A cheap mouse allows finer and faster control than the best touchpad that currently exists, so... I plug in a mouse. (Don't believe me? Play an FPS game with touchpad against a mouse user.) That said, Synaptics touchpad support on Linux is bad. In my case, it's the touchpad on a Thinkpad T440s. It can run in a legacy/standard protocol mode or a "modern" protocol mode. Linux supposedly supports the latter (where palm detection should work) since a few years, but I don't see it being used or palm detection working.

yabb 8y ago
The macbook touchpad is so good that after a few months of practice, I routinely used to top the leaderboard in cod4 hardcore free for all using double tap to aim down the sight, shoot with index finger and aim with middle finger. I even got good at quickscoping with the Barrett 50 Cal, again using only the macbook touchpad. Even mile high club on veteran was not out of reach
- kimdotcom 8y ago
  I would love to watch a split-screen video of this, CoD screen and your finger gestures during play.
nottorp 8y ago
Item 1: It's undeniable that the mouse is more precise, but it tethers you to a desk. One with enough space for a mouse. Not always feasible. Item 2: You're mentioning Thinkpads. Try a touchpad on OS X, then come back. The difference is enormous. You can actually use the GUI without a mouse and without being annoyed, it's the only laptop/OS combination where that works.
- bluecalm 8y ago
  Every time I use my gf's Mac I am instantly annoyed by the touchpad. Yeah, it's better than the one on my Thinkpad but there I use the nipple which is faster, more precise and quicker to reach also I can scroll around using a button under my thump + nipple. Mac lacking page-up/page-down keys is annoying if you need to do a lot of scrolling/coming back to keyboard/scrolling.

naibafo 8y ago

Yes, please!

rrrazdan 8y ago

I would pay good money for this and other improvements to make Linux even come close to Mac (HiDPI support, simple set of utilities, etc)

mschuster91 8y ago

What I find the biggest advantage is the hardware (as another poster here does), but not only due to its superior capabilities in gesture recognition. I have yet to find a non-Macbook touchpad which is: - decently sized: all Windows/Linux laptops I have encountered have ridiculously small touchpads, some not even a quarter of a Macbook touchpad in size. I have huge hands, tiny touchpads are awful when two fingers are wider than the touchpad. - decent material: AFAIK, Apple is the only manufacturer using a glass overlay on the touchpad. The Windows scene exclusively uses plastic, which gets greasy after a couple of months for me. For the keyboards it's similar, Apple simply uses a material that does not get greasy... - decent layouting: MBP touchpads are nearly flush with the casing, which means one can use its full surface area including the edges. Windows touchpads all are recessed, worst I had was 5mm - as evidenced by the grease-free borders I lost about 25% of the already small touchpad.

davidandgoliath 8y ago
afaik, dell / lenovo uses glass (at least on the xps / x1 that I have). Lenovo has them covered in a matte finish of some sort, but it's glass.
vinay427 8y ago
None of your points apply to various newer Windows laptops or even laptops from years ago, such as my T450s. However, the smoothness still isn't up to par with a modern MacBook. I use the TrackPoint anyway, but the trackpad seems decent.
- mschuster91 8y ago
  Of course it's anecdata, but it's still valid when I go through the local electronics supermarkets. Plastic everywhere, nothing comparable with a MacBook (no matter if on touchpad, keyboard or casing).
  - vinay427 8y ago
    I strongly prefer the quality plastic exterior with fiberglass and carbon fiber construction of my ThinkPad. It feels far sturdier than a MacBook Pro which flexes quite a bit (yes, I've had one before), it doesn't heat up like the MacBook and warm my lap, and it's far more resistant to scratches and general wear and tear in my experience. The build quality of the MacBook hinges really throws me off as well. They're actually sturdy-feeling metal on my laptop, while Apple seems to cheap out where metal is actually useful. Just some thoughts to consider. :)

setzer22 8y ago

This is something I've been wanting for a long time and I'd definitely donate money to support such a project!

ToFab123 8y ago

Microsoft did it and wrote a driver that makes a PC touchpad just as amazing as the one you find on a MacBook. There is a world as different between using that driver and the standard synaptics driver most laptops ships with. For sure you want the same on a Linux box.

oaiey 8y ago
This is a missing detail here. Microsoft created around the Win8 timeline a specification for what they call "Precision Touchpad". The surface and e.g. the Dell precision use it. The vendors jumped it as well, but industry like always is super slow adopting. The key is to support that spec.
opencl 8y ago
It's really annoying that Microsoft's precision drivers work with the vast majority of recent Synaptics touchpads and yet vendors keep shipping this hardware with the terrible Synaptics drivers. You can manually install the precision drivers on these machines but then Windows Update will often 'helpfully' decide to revert back to the manufacturer drivers.

dvirsky 8y ago

I have an Apple Magic Trackpad 2 attached to my Linux workstation, and configured using synaptics and a custom kernel driver. The experience is almost good, but not quite there. The most annoying thing is scroll zoom in some apps (mostly Chrome), that makes hitting ctrl while the trackpad is "coasting", result in zooming to oblivion. I've sort of solved it with a chrome extension that disabled scroll zooming. But in general it just doesn't feel as smooth and took a lot of time tinkering with to get to reasonable results. I'll gladly contribute a bit to a kickstarter or something.

sammoth 8y ago

I tried a MacBook touchpad in the Apple store and I didn't get what the fuss was about. It has that annoying feature where when you click the cursor freezes for some period of time, which stops you clicking on multiple things in quick succession. It didn't feel any more precise to me in terms of pointing. I realise it has gesture support that works in close harmony with OS features, but just in terms of pointing and clicking it was nothing special.

Froyoh 8y ago
It's so responsive and smooth, especially double-finger scrolling
- brandonsometig 8y ago
  HP Chromebooks are exactly the same. It's all down to the driver.

peterburkimsher 8y ago

I'll volunteer 2 months full-time development for free, with a few conditions. - I'm looking for a job in New Zealand, Australia, or Canada. Not Seattle (sorry Bill). I'd stop job hunting to work on this, so someone else will have to find me a job. - I'd develop for the MacBook Pro 2014, because that's my hardware. Only one Linux distro (probably Ubuntu). - Weekly check-in emails (maybe twice a week). A plan set out at the beginning with the deliverables for each week. Am I qualified? No idea. Currently I work at OSE, a microSD card manufacturer in Taiwan, where I've bit-banged control systems protocols and done big data analysis. The closest side project I did to this is KeyMouSerial, which logs keyboard & mouse movements on my laptop, sends them to an Arduino, which behaves like a keyboard for a Raspberry Pi. I'm disillusioned with Apple now, and wanting to hop to Linux. I also want to port iTunes and AppleScript, though I think there's less demand for those two.

tzahola 8y ago
Sorry for being off-topic, but I can't resist asking why on Earth would you want to port iTunes and AppleScript? Everyone I know (except the HN user actsasbuffoon) loathes iTunes, while AppleScript is just... silly, compared to other scripting languages.
- peterburkimsher 8y ago
  I miss the old iTunes 10 interface, which I use as a database manager (I like smart playlists, playlist folders, and Genre > Artist > Album columns). AppleScript because it has so many APIs. BetterTouchTool makes heavy use of it. I taught myself how to code in it when I was 13, and I still use it now.
  - tzahola 8y ago
    >AppleScript because it has so many APIs. You mean the commands you can use on apps like iTunes, Finder, Photos, etc.? Those are not AppleScript-specific per se (AFAIK there used to be an option to write Automator scripts in JS). You'd need the Linux/Gnome/KDE equivalent of the Open Scripting Architecture ( https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/AppleScript/Conceptual/AppleScriptX/Concepts/osa.html https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Ap... ) with active participation from app developers. Sounds like a huge overtaking.

H1Supreme 8y ago

Maybe I'm not as sensitive to the differences, but after using Macbooks since 2009, I recently picked up a 13" Dell Inspiron 7000. I put Ubuntu (Mate) on it first thing, and was actually surprised how well the trackpad worked. I was fully prepared for it to be horrible, but it's really not. Maybe I got lucky with this purchase? Maybe the driver isn't so bad? I don't know. I have experienced awful trackpads from other models, so I'm not immune to the effects of a bad one. But, this has been smooth sailing so far.

HeadsUpHigh 8y ago

Absolutely no. I never liked the macbook touchpad. I tried using it a couple times. It really felt like they had to shoehorn every action into a gesture to the point where a lot of them felt extremely cumbersome. For example it took me a few tries until I managed to tile windows. I'm using a regular non-luxury laptop. I'm mostly using it with a mouse because the trackpad goes off every now and then( it's a hardware issue). But when it works it's fine. Cursor tracking is good with no artificial accel etc( meaning it goes exactly where I ask it to go), two finger scrolling works... The only complain is that pinch to zoom doesn't work and that the default button arrangement is a bit cumbersome.

dilap 8y ago
I think you're definitely a special case. For me the MacBook touchpad is my favorite input method, better than even a mouse -- because it's very precise, and the gestures are very handy! Generally, most people are very fond of mac touchpads. So, I'd say from a linux strategic perspective, or the perspectie of the greater good, the answer is yes!
- pmontra 8y ago
  I'm another special case. The only good thing of the mac touchpad is pinch to zoom integrated into many applications. I really don't want gestures. Scrolling and moving the pointer on my HP laptops always worked really well. Maybe it's a HP thing. However I remeber that the same touchpad worked much better with Ubuntu 8.04 than with Windows XP. Two finger scrolling instead of scrolling along the edge, among the other things. I disable clicking on the touchpad and I use the 3 hardware buttons because they're much better at being buttons and how would I middle click and paste with a touchpad? Plus maybe the cursor nudge from the article. No, the touchpad won't sell me a Mac.
  - dilap 8y ago
    Someone needs to make a "touchpad olympics" so we can see who is really more nimble ;-) But yeah, these things can definitely be pretty personal. Also, you get used to one thing and it can be very jarring to use something else. But man I've never used any PC that even felt close to me. And I used to use PC notebooks -- switching to mac was immediately a "holy shit, I'm not plugging in a mouse anymore" moment for me. I've used a couple HP notebooks but nothing recently. Maybe it's gotten better...

jnmandal 8y ago

I would absolutely fund and support this project. It should be done. Personally I am fine with my touchpad experience right now on arch but it can be improved and it should be. These are the offerings we need to make linux more mainstream.

shaan7 8y ago

I've worked with a 2013 MBP 15" for 4 years and then switched to XPS 13 + Kubuntu. The touchpad is butter smooth - be it taps, clicks, or two finger scrolling (and three finger gestures thanks to comfortable-swipe). Any XPS 13 (9360) users around who feel the same?

k_ 8y ago
Dell E7440 here with arch linux. I had never been a touchpad user before, but now it's been 10 months since I used a mouse. I even began to play mouse games with it and it's mostly fine too.

Sholmesy 8y ago

I have this on one of my "Todos", as its my biggest frustration. I must be underestimating just how much it takes to do this, because no one gets close to Apple in my opinion.

hathym 8y ago

How about make your smartphone a smart touchpad? I will use it right aways, maybe even buy a dedicated cheap smartphone just for that

draw_down 8y ago

Whatever their other faults, Macs are the only computers with trackpads worth a shit.

haspok 8y ago

Instead of starting a new project from scratch, why not reanimate synaptics and fix the annoying bugs? Are there licensing issues? Is it not open source? Or is there some underlying technical problem that makes this hard/unfeasible?

nneonneo 8y ago

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.)? (2) A matter of the drivers/userspace stack not decoding motions into useful gestures accurately? (3) Or a lack of support from normal applications or the window server for touch gestures and touch inputs? In kernel space there’s definitely a lot we could crib from Android to get started quickly - since that’s the low-hanging fruit I wonder if anyone’s already done it. The userspace stuff is a totally different affair...

dmix 8y ago
I've customized Linux for touchpads on a couple laptops now (note: Macbooks are terrible choices for using linux on, using Thinkpad/Dell XPS is 100x easier driver wise). The current drivers support about 90% of what Macbook's can do in my experience. As the OP said in the article, it's "good enough", just not perfect. 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.
- jolmg 8y ago
  As someone who's never used a Mac, what's that remaining 10%? What am I missing out on? OP says he needs to "to click in the bottom right corner to effect a right click" when using synaptics, but I've always just tapped 3 fingers to do right clicks.
s73v3r_ 8y ago
"It would be great to know why the Linux drivers aren’t as good as the Mac touchpad drivers." 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."

hajile 8y ago

Has there been any consideration of the driver Google uses for the pixelbook? The touch experience is at least as good as a macbook and I think it's superior.

rconti 8y ago

"but the Touchbar Era has taught me that it sucks to have my user experience tied to the whims of a singleminded hardware company." He's negative on Apple, sure, but this should really read as "it sucks to have my user experience tied to the whims of a company". And that makes a better OSS tagline anyway.

oldgun 8y ago

I'm actually very interested in all the input devices for Linux. I feel like Desktop Linux is not as good on user input devices, compared to MacOS/Windows, e.g. touch screen, hand gesture, stylus support, and of course touchpad. Would like to see them all improved. If there's such an initiative I'll definitely donate.

newscracker 8y ago

When I switched to Linux (because the Mac was old enough not to get updates from Apple), the thing I missed most was support for the external Magic Trackpad (the first version with the removable batteries). I searched around and found some solutions, but they were all outdated and/or abandoned, and none of them could get me all the features and gestures that Apple supported natively since about 8-9 years ago. Though Linux drivers have improved a lot over time, there are still some areas like this that don't get attention. Not that there isn't a large enough user base, but for many other reasons. I would gladly support a crowd funded project by reliable people on such things.

wbharding 8y ago

Original blog poster here (hi!). I'm pleased to find this motherlode of detail-oriented perfectionists here on HN and in my blog comments. This affirms my original question of whether it's a goal worth pursuing. Step one complete. 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?

jcrben 8y ago
I hope you look into updating libinput first. https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/libinput/libinput https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/libinput/libinput Let's not add more not invented here without at least doing some solid good faith effort to join the existing efforts.

scarejunba 8y ago

Use bountysource. I'll chip on a bit of you do that. That's how neovim got started and that worked out well

ChuckMcM 8y ago

I agree that the trackpad on the macbook pro is the gold standard, but the author needs to effectively define the requirements in terms of something testable. Otherwise they will be stuck in a bikeshedding world where everyone is arguing. This doesn't require any coding expertise, but it does require the ability to write requirements in a way that more than one person can interpret them correctly.

p3llin0r3 8y ago

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.

dbg31415 8y ago

I'd be happy if Macs running Windows via Bootcamp had their touchpads work anywhere close to how they work under MacOS... identical hardware, but the software just falls short. Microsoft has a lot of money... makes me think this isn't a simple issue to solve.

matt4077 8y ago

It‘s insane to see how the author is unwilling to give the touch bar a chance, even after they themselves gives exhaustive proof of Apple’s expertise in UI.

curioussavage 8y ago

I am in the same boat as the author. This is why own machine is a chromebook too. Gallium OS (the distro with chromebook fixes) uses the driver from chromeos and it is way better. I would donate at least $100 towards this and would contribute if possible. Maybe a more technical paper on the history and current state of things would be nice too.

appleiigs 8y ago
Chromebook trackpad is great. Closest to Macbook experience I’ve had.

znpy 8y ago

In this post: problems I didn't know existed.