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It less about the gestures, but about the general "feel" of the touchpad: latency, accuracy, acceleration, palm detection etc etc etc "just works" on macOS. I n

It less about the gestures, but about the general "feel" of the touchpad: latency, accuracy, acceleration, palm detection etc etc etc "just works" on macOS. I never had even close to the same experience on Windows, let alone on Linux. Maybe there's a mythical "Mac-like" Linux touchpad driver out there that doesn't suck, but if it isn't installed by default on a vanilla Ubuntu setup (or any other maintream distro) then it might just as well not exist.

jeppester 4y ago
While my experience with Windows mirrors yours, I must say I've generally been quite fond with the feel of touchpads on Linux. Both my spouse's laptop and mine were dramatically better in Linux compared to the Windowses they came with.
smoldesu 4y ago
Good news! It's in vanilla Ubuntu now. The main holdup was Wayland - go get your Wintel machine and try booting up a Wayland session in KDE or GNOME. If your trackpad was manufactured with multitouch, chances are it will have gesture support. Any distro shipping GNOME 41-ish or Plasma >5.25 should have this by-default. As for the feel... I'm gonna be honest, I don't notice any difference from my Mac. If anything, my Magic Trackpad has more gesture options on my KDE machine out-of-the-box. Don't knock it till you've tried it!
- flohofwoe 4y ago
  Erm well, I'm on Ubuntu 22.04 with Wayland and the touchpad is still crap :/ Worst thing is that I can't enable "tap to click" because the palm detection just doesn't work at all.
- pantalaimon 4y ago
  Why Wayland? You get libinput on both Wayland and X11 and X11 has gestures since 21.1
- coupdejarnac 4y ago
  I have an external Magic Trackpad 2 running with Wayland/Ubuntu 22.04, and it works great.
KRAKRISMOTT 4y ago
There are some physical constants that you can't obtain short of measuring the touchpad and response in a metrology lab. Unless Apple releases their sensor thresholds and constants, reverse engineering can only approximate. Even now Flutter on iOS with the Cupertino theme only feels somewhat native.
- skissane 4y ago
  I don’t think it needs a metrology lab - how about clean room reverse engineering of Apple’s driver(s) instead?
sleepybrett 4y ago
there was a magic touchpad driver for windows under bootcamp, worked quite well.
kccqzy 4y ago
I use the Apple Magic Trackpad on my Linux desktop and it works very well out of the box. Works both over Bluetooth and over USB. The acceleration is different from macOS, but it isn't any worse. I can see that it's been supported for a long time in mainline Linux: https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/drivers/hid/hid-magicmouse.c https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/drivers/hid/hi...

jeppester 4y ago

While my experience with Windows mirrors yours, I must say I've generally been quite fond with the feel of touchpads on Linux. Both my spouse's laptop and mine were dramatically better in Linux compared to the Windowses they came with.

smoldesu 4y ago

Good news! It's in vanilla Ubuntu now. The main holdup was Wayland - go get your Wintel machine and try booting up a Wayland session in KDE or GNOME. If your trackpad was manufactured with multitouch, chances are it will have gesture support. Any distro shipping GNOME 41-ish or Plasma >5.25 should have this by-default. As for the feel... I'm gonna be honest, I don't notice any difference from my Mac. If anything, my Magic Trackpad has more gesture options on my KDE machine out-of-the-box. Don't knock it till you've tried it!

flohofwoe 4y ago
Erm well, I'm on Ubuntu 22.04 with Wayland and the touchpad is still crap :/ Worst thing is that I can't enable "tap to click" because the palm detection just doesn't work at all.
pantalaimon 4y ago
Why Wayland? You get libinput on both Wayland and X11 and X11 has gestures since 21.1
coupdejarnac 4y ago
I have an external Magic Trackpad 2 running with Wayland/Ubuntu 22.04, and it works great.

KRAKRISMOTT 4y ago

There are some physical constants that you can't obtain short of measuring the touchpad and response in a metrology lab. Unless Apple releases their sensor thresholds and constants, reverse engineering can only approximate. Even now Flutter on iOS with the Cupertino theme only feels somewhat native.

skissane 4y ago
I don’t think it needs a metrology lab - how about clean room reverse engineering of Apple’s driver(s) instead?

sleepybrett 4y ago

there was a magic touchpad driver for windows under bootcamp, worked quite well.

kccqzy 4y ago

I use the Apple Magic Trackpad on my Linux desktop and it works very well out of the box. Works both over Bluetooth and over USB. The acceleration is different from macOS, but it isn't any worse. I can see that it's been supported for a long time in mainline Linux: https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/drivers/hid/hid-magicmouse.c https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/drivers/hid/hi...