> turns out, a niche OS with a subjective quality issue is -- in this case -- a topic that's important to thousands I would argue that it is less a quality iss

> turns out, a niche OS with a subjective quality issue is -- in this case -- a topic that's important to thousands I would argue that it is less a quality issue, and more that experienced GNU/Linux users tend not have a strong preference for touchpads. There's no collective desire to improve them. Away from my desktop (where a touchpad is irrelevant) my X200 doesn't even have a touchpad. I have an X250 thinkpad with touchpad, but it sees minimal use and performs just fine. I tend to use it when the laptop is at arms reach and it's easier to select a file that way than lean over and use the keyboard. When I'm working I use i3wm (tiling window manager) and most GNU/Linux application make huge use of keyboard bindings. Using a mouse, or worse a trackpad, is massively inefficient. 'OMG, I wish my new MacBook Pro enormous trackpad functioned better when I'm using Ubuntu' is not a phrase I hear often.