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> That's my personal requirement. On a personal laptop I always use the trackpad so I want it to be the best. 100%. On my personal devices I don't want to comp

> That's my personal requirement. On a personal laptop I always use the trackpad so I want it to be the best. 100%. On my personal devices I don't want to compromise on trackpad or keyboards (I like that apple went back on the butterfly keyboards). The rest of my comment is just my personal experience so take it with a grain of salt. I've found the trackpad experience on the XPS and Thinkpad X1 laptops to be excellent under linux. The libinput [1] drivers seem to work really well and the gesture support seems nice too. What I miss from MacBook's touchpad is force-touch. Not having to worry about which part of the touchpad i'm pressing was really nice when I used a macbook. I'm contemplating purchasing a m1 macbook air as my next laptop, but I'm also not sure i'd be willing to give up on being able to run linux natively on a laptop I buy with my own money. [1] https://github.com/wayland-project/libinput https://github.com/wayland-project/libinput

anuragsoni 6y ago
I didn't mention this in my comment, but i use wayland on linux and i've found the touchpad experience to be nicer there compared to X11, even though both X11 and wayland sessions for Gnome use libinput. I don't know much about libinput to know why I feel a difference in my touchpad experience between X11 and wayland.
TimTheTinker 6y ago
> I'm also not sure i'd be willing to give up on being able to run linux natively on a laptop I buy with my own money. May I suggest sponsoring Hector Martin on GitHub[0]? He’s working on building first-class support for the M1 architecture (including drivers) into Linux. [0] https://github.com/marcan https://github.com/marcan
- rfoo 6y ago
  Caveat: may not include an awesome trackpad driver.
  - coldtea 6y ago
    If it includes a GPU driver, then the trackpad driver is trivial compared to that. Actually manufacturing the trackpad hardware might be difficult/expensive, but since that's already a given, the driver can be tweaked in tons of ways to fit the regular macOS experience...
    - rfoo 6y ago
      True, but then why don't we have awesome Linux trackpad drivers for Intel Macbooks?
      - coldtea 6y ago
        Isn't there a 1-2 year old project that claims to have made great trackpad driver behavior in Linux? I think this is the case I remember: https://bill.harding.blog/2020/04/26/linux-touchpad-like-a-macbook-pro-may-2020-update/ https://bill.harding.blog/2020/04/26/linux-touchpad-like-a-m...
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - Siira 6y ago
        We don’t even have them for Bootcamp.
    - TimTheTinker 6y ago
      Apple’s trackpad driver is massive, I think. Do not underestimate the amount of detailed work that went into it.
    - ankka 6y ago
      Doing output is trivial compared to properly handling any type of free-form user input.
      - coldtea 6y ago

anuragsoni 6y ago

I didn't mention this in my comment, but i use wayland on linux and i've found the touchpad experience to be nicer there compared to X11, even though both X11 and wayland sessions for Gnome use libinput. I don't know much about libinput to know why I feel a difference in my touchpad experience between X11 and wayland.

TimTheTinker 6y ago

> I'm also not sure i'd be willing to give up on being able to run linux natively on a laptop I buy with my own money. May I suggest sponsoring Hector Martin on GitHub[0]? He’s working on building first-class support for the M1 architecture (including drivers) into Linux. [0] https://github.com/marcan https://github.com/marcan

rfoo 6y ago
Caveat: may not include an awesome trackpad driver.
- coldtea 6y ago
  If it includes a GPU driver, then the trackpad driver is trivial compared to that. Actually manufacturing the trackpad hardware might be difficult/expensive, but since that's already a given, the driver can be tweaked in tons of ways to fit the regular macOS experience...
  - rfoo 6y ago
    True, but then why don't we have awesome Linux trackpad drivers for Intel Macbooks?
    - coldtea 6y ago
      Isn't there a 1-2 year old project that claims to have made great trackpad driver behavior in Linux? I think this is the case I remember: https://bill.harding.blog/2020/04/26/linux-touchpad-like-a-macbook-pro-may-2020-update/ https://bill.harding.blog/2020/04/26/linux-touchpad-like-a-m...
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    - Siira 6y ago
      We don’t even have them for Bootcamp.
  - TimTheTinker 6y ago
    Apple’s trackpad driver is massive, I think. Do not underestimate the amount of detailed work that went into it.
  - ankka 6y ago
    Doing output is trivial compared to properly handling any type of free-form user input.
    - coldtea 6y ago