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I don't understand why everyone keep saying touchpad works bad in linux. I have 2 laptops: * Acer Chromebook 720 with pretty bad hardware touchpad, but it work

I don't understand why everyone keep saying touchpad works bad in linux. I have 2 laptops: * Acer Chromebook 720 with pretty bad hardware touchpad, but it works with linux OK (I prefer using mouse) * Thinkpad T420, good hardware, works with linux really well. Supports vertical and horizontal scrolling, some gestures (laptop is from 2011, I prefer using touchpad). I suspect it's because Apple line of products don't have good linux synaptics support or something like that? Here is a guide on how to set up touchpad on linux for most desktop environments, xorg along with some troubleshooting tips -- https://wiki.debian.org/SynapticsTouchpad https://wiki.debian.org/SynapticsTouchpad

infecto 8y ago
In fairness I have not used the touchpad in linux in a couple years. I think its always been a picture of Apples touchpad tech being lightyears ahead of everyone else, or at least the patents keep everyone behind and the default support in Linux was also iffy.
yaseer 8y ago
No, it's because Apple's touchpad hardware is superior, and the industry benchmark. I say this grudgingly. I have given up on Apple's laptops for a host of reasons. The touchpad is the main thing I miss. It's not a question of a driver update. The perfect precision of their touchpad hardware has not (yet) been matched.
- seba_dos1 8y ago
  It really isn't. I'm a GNU/Linux user, but I have access to a Macbook and, what's more, have the Magic Trackpad 2 right in front of me. It's just a regular touchpad hardware, comparable to one in my Lenovo laptop, but with "force touch" - which if you don't care about silent clicking is just a gimmick that doesn't make much of a difference. (if you do care about not making clicking noise without having to "tap", then well, it is somewhat exceptional - that's why I own it) The "secret sauce" is simply in the application support for gestures. Even the driver isn't that exceptional (just well tuned), it's all toolkit and app support. On GNU/Linux you have several ways to support multitouch gestures, but all of them work as simple triggers - a completely different experience that what software on macOS usually provides.
  - yaseer 8y ago
    Unless we come up with some objective criteria to compare touchpads, this may be a subjective judgement. Nevertheless, there are a large volume of people who subjectively believe Apple's touchpads 'feel' better and more precise, beyond just multi touch gestures. You could compare it to the handling of a car. There is some consensus luxury cars feel better to drive.
    - seba_dos1 8y ago
      From what I gathered, it's actually another thing: there is a large volume of people using misconfigured or simply bad software with their perfectly fine hardware touchpads. Apple ones, that are actually well configured out-of-the-box, then "feel" better and more precise, and clueless people incorrectly blame their hardware for sub-par experience. Been there, done that. I've blamed a touchpad of my work machine (which was actually a higher model of the same line as my personal laptop), but it turned out it used a different software driver (accidentally - I've swapped their SSDs and it turned out that the quality of their touchpads swapped as well :D). Also, both of these touchpads felt simply awful on Windows. After that I've spend some time figuring it out and it turns out that these days it's actually hard to get a crappy touchpad (unless you pay really crappy money for a whole machine). It's all in software.

infecto 8y ago

In fairness I have not used the touchpad in linux in a couple years. I think its always been a picture of Apples touchpad tech being lightyears ahead of everyone else, or at least the patents keep everyone behind and the default support in Linux was also iffy.

yaseer 8y ago

No, it's because Apple's touchpad hardware is superior, and the industry benchmark. I say this grudgingly. I have given up on Apple's laptops for a host of reasons. The touchpad is the main thing I miss. It's not a question of a driver update. The perfect precision of their touchpad hardware has not (yet) been matched.

seba_dos1 8y ago
It really isn't. I'm a GNU/Linux user, but I have access to a Macbook and, what's more, have the Magic Trackpad 2 right in front of me. It's just a regular touchpad hardware, comparable to one in my Lenovo laptop, but with "force touch" - which if you don't care about silent clicking is just a gimmick that doesn't make much of a difference. (if you do care about not making clicking noise without having to "tap", then well, it is somewhat exceptional - that's why I own it) The "secret sauce" is simply in the application support for gestures. Even the driver isn't that exceptional (just well tuned), it's all toolkit and app support. On GNU/Linux you have several ways to support multitouch gestures, but all of them work as simple triggers - a completely different experience that what software on macOS usually provides.
- yaseer 8y ago
  Unless we come up with some objective criteria to compare touchpads, this may be a subjective judgement. Nevertheless, there are a large volume of people who subjectively believe Apple's touchpads 'feel' better and more precise, beyond just multi touch gestures. You could compare it to the handling of a car. There is some consensus luxury cars feel better to drive.
  - seba_dos1 8y ago
    From what I gathered, it's actually another thing: there is a large volume of people using misconfigured or simply bad software with their perfectly fine hardware touchpads. Apple ones, that are actually well configured out-of-the-box, then "feel" better and more precise, and clueless people incorrectly blame their hardware for sub-par experience. Been there, done that. I've blamed a touchpad of my work machine (which was actually a higher model of the same line as my personal laptop), but it turned out it used a different software driver (accidentally - I've swapped their SSDs and it turned out that the quality of their touchpads swapped as well :D). Also, both of these touchpads felt simply awful on Windows. After that I've spend some time figuring it out and it turns out that these days it's actually hard to get a crappy touchpad (unless you pay really crappy money for a whole machine). It's all in software.