I have been using 12" MacBooks since they came out because I live out of a backpack and travel a lot.<p>I cannot find anything comparable in terms of size/weight/battery and build quality. Especially the trackpad, nothing is remotely close. Otherwise I'd get that and put Arch on it.<p>People complain Apple is expensive, not so sure. The TCO may actually be less because of the high resale value. It is also more convenient.<p>More than once when faced with crossing an annoying border (TSA, sigh) I'd sell the Macbook at my origin and simply pickup a new one at the destination. Thirty minutes in-and-out of the Apple store, they all seem to have exceptionally fast wifi, and setup handled via a curl-to-bash of mine gets me <i>exactly</i> back to where I started, down to the sessions..<p>Since my points of origin usually have higher Apple prices due to currency/taxes, I end up accidentally eking out a profit after months of use per machine.<p>If you can't be arsed with the above consider this: Their retail global presence is getting to be quite complete, even coming to Samsung land (Seoul, behold: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt4ldH5vQCQ" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt4ldH5vQCQ</a>) and Tel Aviv finally along with some others. Most big airport hub cities will have an Apple store close by.<p>Stuff gets broken or stolen and yet with this setup I'm generally never 24 hours away from my exact laptop setup...<p>There is no alternative. I feel trapped.
I'll volunteer 2 months full-time development for free, with a few conditions.<p>- I'm looking for a job in New Zealand, Australia, or Canada. Not Seattle (sorry Bill). I'd stop job hunting to work on this, so someone else will have to find me a job.<p>- I'd develop for the MacBook Pro 2014, because that's my hardware. Only one Linux distro (probably Ubuntu).<p>- Weekly check-in emails (maybe twice a week). A plan set out at the beginning with the deliverables for each week.<p>Am I qualified? No idea. Currently I work at OSE, a microSD card manufacturer in Taiwan, where I've bit-banged control systems protocols and done big data analysis. The closest side project I did to this is KeyMouSerial, which logs keyboard & mouse movements on my laptop, sends them to an Arduino, which behaves like a keyboard for a Raspberry Pi.<p>I'm disillusioned with Apple now, and wanting to hop to Linux. I also want to port iTunes and AppleScript, though I think there's less demand for those two.
One of the main reasons I stopped using Linux is the touchpad! It is horrible out of the box experience and the insult to injury is the lack of no good user interface to even set anything. You have to screw around with libinput or xinput with zero documentation on both parts and hope you will hit a sweet spot eventually and hope that any future updates won't break it.<p>I am way past of the tinkerer phase where I would enjoy spending a week on trying to make something work under Linux just so I can feel better. Or the patience where I waited for 1.5 years just to have proper support for the AGP slot on my motherboard.<p>I want a Linux system that works out of the box and has no problems with standard features like a touchpad.<p>Under Windows 10 the new precision drivers are fantastic, very close to Mac comfort. Whoever creates something similar under Linux deserves a Nobel Prize and a monument.
Yes, please do! I've spent some time researching this as well, and to me it seems like the author has missed one thing; the Mac touchpad hardware is <i>so much better</i> than other touchpad hardware. (As I understand it, the competition is barred from making similar touchpads due to patents)<p>I have been running Linux on MacBook Pros for many years, and the touchpad is a constant source of disappointment. For the effort to be worthwhile to me, the goal would have to include getting Apple's touchpads working excellently in Linux.<p>I would definitely participate in crowdfunding this effort. (Kickstarter or otherwise)
I used to care a lot about this kind of things about two years ago when I switched from mac to linux. But to be honest, you just kind of get used to it after a while and its not really that much of a deal breaker anymore. I spend most of my time in terminals, and I use i3wm so most of my workflow doesnt involve using the touchpad at all. The only use case i have for it is when using chrome, but even so theres vimium and similar things to help you navigate around without leaving your keyboard.
If someone could actually make this, I would gladly pay an annual subscription to access it. Almost the only reason I'm still buying MacBooks is because of the touchpad, and if I could get that on Linux I probably would just switch to a normal PC.
Original blog poster here (hi!). I'm pleased to find this motherlode of detail-oriented perfectionists here on HN and in my blog comments. This affirms my original question of whether it's a goal worth pursuing. Step one complete.<p>Step two will be for me to sift through the offers and figure out how they can be pieced together into a plan of action. It seems unrealistic to expect that we could raise more than... $20k?... from detail-oriented perfectionists, so I still need to figure out how best to constrain the scope of the goals enough to get this done with scarce resources (unless someone at Microsoft wants to kick in $1m in exchange for the affection of several thousand developers? :D)<p>It doesn't help that my day job is running a company in the process of launching two new products -- this has a tendency to gobble up available evenings and weekends and I wouldn't recommend it. But I've added it to my todo list to puzzle out how to combine these dev resources into a plan. It's plausible that the current libinput developer could be swayed by this outpouring to help me build a viable plan to build a modern Linux touchpad driver. I'll start there.<p>Look for an updated blog post with progress in the next couple months. And who knows, maybe I won't still be using this 10 year old hardware in another year?
I've wanted to do this as well. I came to the conclusion that you'll need to bypass the X windows input system and read the device directly, none of the current solutions (like libinput, mtrack, or synaptics) would work satisfactorily. And integrating it with Gtk or Qt will never work well because of the structure imposed by those frameworks (Cocoa/ObjC is a much more flexible framework)<p>I was able to write a prototype version of things like a tableview or image viewer that gets input directly from the touchpad device (that draws straight to an OpenGL texture or pixmap). The problem is that you'll never be able to integrate this with Gtk and Qt, it just doesn't fit together. And working within those two frameworks is kind of hell. Generally, gestures are not discrete, you can go halfway through a gesture and change your mind, but you'll still get graphical feedback from the UI. That's part of the joy of using the touchpad. But it's just easier to write it from scratch than to add it to Gtk or Qt.<p>For me personally, it's not a huge problem because I generally avoid Gtk and Qt apps if at all possible and make my own UI's, but I don't see it gaining widespread adoption so I don't know if it's worth the effort.
The touchpad experience of the Mac is where vertical integration really shines. The touchpad is so good precisely because there are not hundreds of hardware variants to support. Just the one that Apple used in their past X years of MacBooks (so never more than a hand-full). And they make their own OS and drivers.<p>Doing this for all laptops Linux could possibly run on is almost impossible. It’s a shame that touchpad (or laptop) vendors do not see good drivers as a competitive advantage. Sounds like a lot of people would buy a laptop just for its touchpad (though probably not enough to justify investment from manufacturers, so it seems).
It would be great to know why the Linux drivers aren’t as good as the Mac touchpad drivers. I have little experience with Linux input drivers, but significant experience with the Android touch input stack (including a fair bit of experience hacking the Synaptics touchscreen drivers). Is it a matter of (1) the drivers themselves failing to provide good raw data (finger positions, update rate, positional accuracy, etc.)? (2) A matter of the drivers/userspace stack not decoding motions into useful gestures accurately? (3) Or a lack of support from normal applications or the window server for touch gestures and touch inputs?<p>In kernel space there’s definitely a lot we could crib from Android to get started quickly - since that’s the low-hanging fruit I wonder if anyone’s already done it. The userspace stuff is a totally different affair...
I have an Apple Magic Trackpad 2 attached to my Linux workstation, and configured using synaptics and a custom kernel driver. The experience is almost good, but not quite there.<p>The most annoying thing is scroll zoom in some apps (mostly Chrome), that makes hitting ctrl while the trackpad is "coasting", result in zooming to oblivion. I've sort of solved it with a chrome extension that disabled scroll zooming.<p>But in general it just doesn't feel as smooth and took a lot of time tinkering with to get to reasonable results.<p>I'll gladly contribute a bit to a kickstarter or something.
I tried a MacBook touchpad in the Apple store and I didn't get what the fuss was about. It has that annoying feature where when you click the cursor freezes for some period of time, which stops you clicking on multiple things in quick succession. It didn't feel any more precise to me in terms of pointing. I realise it has gesture support that works in close harmony with OS features, but just in terms of pointing and clicking it was nothing special.
Instead of starting a new project from scratch, why not reanimate synaptics and fix the annoying bugs? Are there licensing issues? Is it not open source? Or is there some underlying technical problem that makes this hard/unfeasible?
Usually when people set me up for high expectations, I end up getting disappointed. In the case of the Macbook touchpad, my expecations were actually exceeded. I use Bootcamp a lot for some of my projects, and the touchpad support in Windows is so bad, I can't wait to go back to Mac Os (other than that, I'm pretty much OS agnostic).
It's been a year now I've switched from mac to linux. Using libinput-gestures[0] was quite nice, but eventually I changed by workflow to use keyboard shortcuts more.<p>[0] <a href="https://github.com/bulletmark/libinput-gestures" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/bulletmark/libinput-gestures</a>
Is the touchpad driver in the macOS kernel? If yes, the kernel itself is open source, would it be crazy to try to extract the driver from there and make it Linux compatible?<p>Other question: When are you actually using the touchpad? I use my notebook 99% of the time with a screen + keyboard/mouse.<p>Next question: Can we get to the level of a Macbook touchpad only with software? Is there no magic sauce inside the hardware itself? How does the touchpad feel when installing Windows or Linux on the Mac?
Interesting that touchpad problems affect _many_ users, it's been a source of pain and complaints for many years and the community can't throw together e.g. $100k to pay a dev to develop a good enough driver.
Microsoft did it and wrote a driver that makes a PC touchpad just as amazing as the one you find on a MacBook. There is a world as different between using that driver and the standard synaptics driver most laptops ships with. For sure you want the same on a Linux box.
Maybe I'm not as sensitive to the differences, but after using Macbooks since 2009, I recently picked up a 13" Dell Inspiron 7000. I put Ubuntu (Mate) on it first thing, and was actually surprised how well the trackpad worked. I was fully prepared for it to be horrible, but it's really not.<p>Maybe I got lucky with this purchase? Maybe the driver isn't so bad? I don't know. I have experienced awful trackpads from other models, so I'm not immune to the effects of a bad one. But, this has been smooth sailing so far.
I have a System76 Galago Pro with 32 gigs of ram and an i7 processor.<p>Works GREAT, fan of the keyboard and everything.<p>The case is kinda shit, but it doesn't really bother me that much. I'm not obsessed with having a designer laptop that looks beautiful, just something to slam around and run programs on. Additionally, having a ton of ports to plug things into has been very welcome after migrating off of the touchpad macbook pros.<p>Linux desktop is nice because of the great docker support, and honestly it tends to work quite well for pretty much everything I throw at it. Multi-monitor support is great, it works fine with my 4k monitor. I was AMAZED when I plugged my usb-c headphones into the usb-c port and heard sound come out.<p>I tend to just travel with a ball mouse because I have really severe hyperhidrosis which renders basically all track-pads, even Apples', completely unusable, and uncomfortable to boot. Moisture + friction is not a great combo.<p>I admit that I'm a bit of a weirdo and this set-up would be sub-optimal for a lot of people due to support for various adobe products. But I'm happy with the setup.<p>If I could go back in time I would probably get a Surface laptop and set my home computer up as a server, and automate sending work to it, because I'm a big fan of indie video games and would enjoy being able to play games on my laptop.
What I find the biggest advantage is the hardware (as another poster here does), but not only due to its superior capabilities in gesture recognition.<p>I have yet to find a non-Macbook touchpad which is:<p>- decently sized: all Windows/Linux laptops I have encountered have <i>ridiculously</i> small touchpads, some not even a quarter of a Macbook touchpad in size. I have huge hands, tiny touchpads are awful when two fingers are wider than the touchpad.<p>- decent material: AFAIK, Apple is the <i>only</i> manufacturer using a glass overlay on the touchpad. The Windows scene exclusively uses plastic, which gets greasy after a couple of months for me. For the keyboards it's similar, Apple simply uses a material that does not get greasy...<p>- decent layouting: MBP touchpads are nearly flush with the casing, which means one can use its full surface area including the edges. Windows touchpads all are recessed, worst I had was 5mm - as evidenced by the grease-free borders I lost about 25% of the already small touchpad.
I'm actually very interested in all the input devices for Linux. I feel like Desktop Linux is not as good on user input devices, compared to MacOS/Windows, e.g. touch screen, hand gesture, stylus support, and of course touchpad.<p>Would like to see them all improved. If there's such an initiative I'll definitely donate.
I am in the same boat as the author. This is why own machine is a chromebook too. Gallium OS (the distro with chromebook fixes) uses the driver from chromeos and it is way better.<p>I would donate at least $100 towards this and would contribute if possible.<p>Maybe a more technical paper on the history and current state of things would be nice too.
Absolutely no. I never liked the macbook touchpad. I tried using it a couple times. It really felt like they had to shoehorn every action into a gesture to the point where a lot of them felt extremely cumbersome. For example it took me a few tries until I managed to tile windows.<p>I'm using a regular non-luxury laptop. I'm mostly using it with a mouse because the trackpad goes off every now and then( it's a hardware issue). But when it works it's fine. Cursor tracking is good with no artificial accel etc( meaning it goes exactly where I ask it to go), two finger scrolling works... The only complain is that pinch to zoom doesn't work and that the default button arrangement is a bit cumbersome.
I've worked with a 2013 MBP 15" for 4 years and then switched to XPS 13 + Kubuntu. The touchpad is butter smooth - be it taps, clicks, or two finger scrolling (and three finger gestures thanks to comfortable-swipe).<p>Any XPS 13 (9360) users around who feel the same?
When I switched to Linux (because the Mac was old enough not to get updates from Apple), the thing I missed most was support for the external Magic Trackpad (the first version with the removable batteries). I searched around and found some solutions, but they were all outdated and/or abandoned, and none of them could get me all the features and gestures that Apple supported natively since about 8-9 years ago.<p>Though Linux drivers have improved a lot over time, there are still some areas like this that don't get attention. Not that there isn't a large enough user base, but for many other reasons. I would gladly support a crowd funded project by reliable people on such things.
I don't think the trackpad is uniquely good on MacBooks. What I miss after switching however is BetterTouchTool. That supercharged what was a trackpad basically only used for scroll and single/right clicks to something awesome.
It would also be amazing to have a linux distro that has excellent, first-class support for recent Apple computers. No such thing has existed for years. It’s terrible that we are all trusting closed-source FileVault.<p>I would donate to such an effort.
I agree that the trackpad on the macbook pro is the gold standard, but the author needs to effectively define the requirements in terms of something testable. Otherwise they will be stuck in a bikeshedding world where everyone is arguing.<p>This doesn't require any coding expertise, but it does require the ability to write requirements in a way that more than one person can interpret them correctly.
"but the Touchbar Era has taught me that it sucks to have my user experience tied to the whims of a singleminded hardware company."<p>He's negative on Apple, sure, but this should really read as "it sucks to have my user experience tied to the whims of a company". And that makes a better OSS tagline anyway.
I'd be happy if Macs running Windows via Bootcamp had their touchpads work anywhere close to how they work under MacOS... identical hardware, but the software just falls short. Microsoft has a lot of money... makes me think this isn't a simple issue to solve.
Are the Linux touchpad drivers developed apart, or together with other input methods, like touch (e.g. KDE Plasma)?<p>How is the state of touch on desktop Linux, does it work fluidly? If yes, the drivers that handle touch might be usable to improve touchpad performance.
I would absolutely fund and support this project. It should be done. Personally I am fine with my touchpad experience right now on arch but it can be improved and it should be. These are the offerings we need to make linux more mainstream.
I have this on one of my "Todos", as its my biggest frustration. I must be underestimating just how much it takes to do this, because no one gets close to Apple in my opinion.
I'd certainly contribute to a fund to raise money for a way of making the internet easily browse-able using the keyboard.<p>Then I would not need a pointing or scrolling device at ALL.<p>Which would be heaven.
Has there been any consideration of the driver Google uses for the pixelbook? The touch experience is at least as good as a macbook and I think it's superior.
It‘s insane to see how the author is unwilling to give the touch bar a chance, even after they themselves gives exhaustive proof of Apple’s expertise in UI.
I wonder when he switches back in a year whether the time will feel like a worthwhile investment or just happy to have really showed them and their Touch Bar.
The touchpad on my macbook pro is just such an amazing feature, so intuitive. So 'just right' ... and consider that it's a primary form of interface.<p>Everybody should be doing this yesterday, it's one of the most obviously good things going.
Yes, definitely.<p>Depending on the distribution, touchpads on Linux are between unusable and bad.<p>False touches are expecially annoying while you're typing a paper and you palm touches the border of the touchpad.<p>I often disable the touchpad completely, or at least while a key is being pressed, with a few milliseconds delay.
A cheap mouse allows finer and faster control than the best touchpad that currently exists, so... I plug in a mouse. (Don't believe me? Play an FPS game with touchpad against a mouse user.)<p>That said, Synaptics touchpad support on Linux is bad. In my case, it's the touchpad on a Thinkpad T440s. It can run in a legacy/standard protocol mode or a "modern" protocol mode. Linux supposedly supports the latter (where palm detection should work) since a few years, but I don't see it being used or palm detection working.