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The biggest issue preventing me from switching to Linux on my macbook pro is trackpad support. Before I tried Linux, I never realized how important a good trac
by armchairhacker 5y ago
The biggest issue preventing me from switching to Linux on my macbook pro is trackpad support.
Before I tried Linux, I never realized how important a good trackpad driver is. The mouse never moves where I want it so I have to constantly correct. It registers a tap when I don't it to yet doesn't tap when I do. Trying to use a trackpad on Linux is so frustrating.
Whereas on macOS I've mastered the trackpad so that using it is easier than a mouse. I can move to and click on a random button in like 1sec.
I also need to mention that macOS has two-finger scrolling, and four-finger navigation through multiple windows / screens. I use both features a ton. Linux has two-finger support but it sucks, and I don't know about any four-finger navigation.
I've tried both the default linux driver and mtrack, mtrack is slightly better but still nothing compared to whatever macOS uses. AFAIK this is a well-known problem, but until it's resolved I just can't imagine using Linux on a laptop. Having a good trackpad just makes everything so much easier.
- heavyset_go 5y agoTrackpad support has gotten a lot better with Wayland and its libinput support. I have a Macbook Pro and trackpad support under Linux via Wayland is comparable to macOS. Wayland and libinput support multitouch gestures. Two finger scrolling and four finger gestures work well.
- armchairhacker 5y agothanks, I am actually going to try this Linux is otherwise a very good OS for my needs, but bad trackpad support is a deal-breaker
- heavyset_go 5y agoCheck out gestures[1] if you get libinput working with Wayland or X. libinput for X has less features and gesture support, though. [1] https://gitlab.com/cunidev/gestures https://gitlab.com/cunidev/gestures
- shadowgovt 5y agoIt turns out great trackpad support is a relatively hard problem. There's low-level analysis, heuristics, and even some honest-to-god machine learning pattern recognition in the MacOSX software that determines "Is the user doing something or did their palm bump the trackpad there?"