Why does this seem like such a hard problem to solve for everyone that isn’t Apple, when Apple seemingly solved the Trackpad over a decade ago?<p>Is this it? An unknown ROI?<p>>the highly uncertain ROI for trying to align touchpad acceleration has prevented us from proposing a system change to the default Linux settings.<p>I can only speak for myself, but I gave up using trackpads on anything that isn’t a MacBook many years ago. Very occasionally I’ll try them and have always been disappointed. This prevents me from buying any laptop that isn’t a Mac and prevents me from running any OS that isn’t macOS on a laptop. I can’t be the only person who prioritizes the quality and feel of input devices when choosing a system. If this can make or break sales and adoption, it seems like the ROI would be pretty good. Even if we are just talking about Java app, if I’m using an obviously Java app that feels like a clunky Java app, I’ll usually find an alternative app that doesn’t feel horrible to use.<p>I’m glad progress is being made, but I struggle to understand why it’s still a problem at all when it’s been so good for so long with Apple. They even sell Bluetooth trackpads for desktops it’s so good.
Apple has been perfecting its trackpad software since 1994, and it’s been getting better ever since. By contrast Apple keyboards have gotten worse since 1995 when it discontinued the Apple Extended Keyboard II. We don’t talk about Apple’s mice.
I remember this project starting. Not one single thing has changed that affects me as a result and I use Linux everywhere, daily. As far as I can tell it's a lot of small, niche work, that is almost completely immaterial to average users.<p>Meanwhile there's no stop scroll events across the ecosystem. The single biggest win that Linux touchpad needs is stop scroll events.<p>I'll bite my tongue on passing more judgement on how this effort has been portrayed over the past few years.
I welcome any and all improvements to touchpads on Linux and Windows systems. Switching from my personal MacBook to my work ThinkPad is like traveling back in time in terms of usability.
I'm confused what this is trying to achieve. In my four years of Linux usage, I have had no complaints about the touchpad[0].<p>[0] Other than the issue where sometimes my touchpad requires an extra finger touch to work after resuming from suspend, but I have a hunch that is a hardware/firmware issue. In fact, I seem to recall that happening on a Windows machine once.
The main thing I think is missing is universal support for kinetic/inertial scrolling, where you can fling your fingers on the touchpad and it keeps going after you stop. It seems to work with GTK but not Qt
It's hard to guarantee a consistent experience given the large variation of hardware out there. Apple has the advantage of vertical integration, allowing them to optimally tune their drivers for a single device.
I think windows touchpads have also been improved after windows 10. Just a few years ago you could easily recognize windows user using notebook because they always brought a mouse with them, such bad was the touchpad on windows; actually it was way way worse than on linux.<p>That habit seems to be fading out, so I guess the touchpads have also been improving for windows users recently.
> at the moment, our lead developer is working on Linux touchpad improvements at less than 1/8 capacity. This means that progress is slow as he can only spend half a week per month on improvements.<p>How does it work? For most engineers, working on some complex task with this kind of scattered schedule means a need to spend the significant time on restoring the context.
Is there an initiative going on to make hibernation work on Linux?<p>I think this is a much higher priority... Honestly, this is the only thing that bothers me about Linux. I need to keep my machine suspended between use sessions, which is a waste of the planet's resources. Imagine that multiplied by the dozens (maybe 100's?) of thousands of engineers doing the same?
> We now have smooth scrolling support in popular Java library called "awt." Many Java applications use this library underneath, including IDEs such as Eclipse, IDEA or Rider.<p>Eclipse doesn't use AWT, but rather uses SWT, a completely separate toolkit/API. That said, it's still great to hear that this is being improved.
Maybe this will allow mouse to scroll like a trackpad? That would be nice.<p>Particularly spreadsheets with tall cells can be almost impossible to scroll with a mouse because mouse scrolling is on lines and you need half lines to comfortably view what’s at the bottom of a tall cell. But use the track pad and it’s fine.
How can I test the improvements?<p>Wayland, XServer, Firefox, Gtk and QT patches were merged in 2021 already: <a href="https://bill.harding.blog/2021/06/06/linux-touchpad-like-macbook-update-touchpad-gestures-land-to-qt-gimp-and-x-server/" rel="nofollow">https://bill.harding.blog/2021/06/06/linux-touchpad-like-mac...</a><p>But while running a current Debian unstable with Mate desktop, I don't know in which applications I could test the gestures, neither do I know which gestures are supported
The touchpad experience on Gnome is largely great already. It has kinetic scroll and gestures.<p>My only gripe is that you can't control the scroll speed. Especially in Firefox it feels way to fast. There are config options for that, but they also apply to a mouse scrollwheel, which in turn will feel too slow.<p>I guess the lack of this setting on the OS level is caused by the ongoing discussion what the "correct" place for advanced touchpad settings would be (application/compositor/libinput), which has been mentioned in multiple comments here.
If you want to have mouse scroll wheel acceleration, you might be interested in a small project of mine: <a href="https://github.com/albertz/mouse-scroll-wheel-acceleration-userspace">https://github.com/albertz/mouse-scroll-wheel-acceleration-u...</a><p>I'm using this all the time on non-Mac platforms. Once you get used to this, it's hard to get back.<p>But I'm still waiting that such a feature gets more built into the core, e.g. libinput or so.
I grew up a PC gamer in the 2000s, so developed a very strong preference for <i>no acceleration at all</i> and a medium-low pointer speed.<p>Apple may have great trackpad hardware, but all the software smoothing/acceleration/inertia is infuriating when trying to make precise cursor movements.<p>I find myself constantly overcorrecting. These fractions of a second wasted add up in a day while trying to work. It's exhausting. Windows is even worse and I don't believe it's possible to completely get rid of the acceleration.<p>All these skeuomorphic attempts to apply physics to the UI are misguided. Why not bring back those old ugly icons and the wasted screen space too?
Seems like calling it "Linux touchpad like MacBook" is a way to make sure that no one will be willing to help you other than people who use MacBooks, and people who use MacBooks have no need for this.<p>I'm into "Linux touchpad with more tweakable and accessible parameters," or "Linux touchpad with better gesture support," but described like this, it's the type of thing I would ignore or not even hear about until it was an abandoned/dead project. I simply wouldn't realize that it's something useful for me to support. I exclusively use touchpads and Linux desktops, and while I've been frustrated at not being able to get the touchpad to feel like I would ideally want, if it felt like a Mac touchpad I would <i>hate</i> it.<p>A bunch of parameters that you can tweak to imitate MacBooks? Yes, please. A switch to turn your touchpad into a Mac touchpad? Who cares other than people who are only forced to use Linux for development on the job because their preferred Mac is too nerfed to allow them to allow them to get their work done?<p>As a larger statement, it seems that the strain of "What will make Linux catch on is making it more like Macs" has largely died off, largely because the people who want Macs buy Macs. It's a tactic as likely to be as successful as the "making Firefox indistinguishable from Chrome will make Chrome users switch to Firefox" pretense, and gets as much development support as the "making GIMP exactly like Photoshop" projects. The Firefox thing wouldn't have happened if they weren't completely funded by Google, and people who like Photoshop <i>prefer Photoshop and aren't going to work on GIMP.</i>
also a cool extension: <a href="https://github.com/JoseExposito/touchegg">https://github.com/JoseExposito/touchegg</a>
Related. Others?<p><i>Linux Touchpad like MacBook Update: 2022 progress and new poll</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34300973">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34300973</a> - Jan 2023 (59 comments)<p><i>Linux Touchpad Like MacBook Update: Touchpad Gestures Now Shipping</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29555822">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29555822</a> - Dec 2021 (419 comments)<p><i>Linux Touchpad like MacBook: Touchpad gestures land to Qt, Gimp and X server</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27414160">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27414160</a> - June 2021 (3 comments)<p><i>Linux touchpad like a Mac update: Firefox gesture support live in nightly</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26102894">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26102894</a> - Feb 2021 (16 comments)<p><i>Q3 Linux touchpad update: Multitouch gesture test packages now ready</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24700537">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24700537</a> - Oct 2020 (136 comments)<p><i>Linux Touchpad Like a MacBook update: progress on multitouch</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23615218">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23615218</a> - June 2020 (127 comments)<p><i>Linux touchpad: preliminary project funding, survey results</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23235609">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23235609</a> - May 2020 (169 comments)<p><i>Linux touchpad like a MacBook Pro, May 2020 update</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23080435">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23080435</a> - May 2020 (324 comments)<p><i>Linux touchpad like a MacBook: April 2020 update</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23039515">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23039515</a> - May 2020 (155 comments)<p><i>Linux touchpad like a Macbook: progress and a call for help</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19485178">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19485178</a> - March 2019 (212 comments)<p><i>Linux touchpad like a Macbook: goal worth pursuing?</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17547817">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17547817</a> - July 2018 (336 comments)<p><i>Linux touchpad like a Macbook: goal worth pursuing?</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16843720">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16843720</a> - April 2018 (1 comment)
Somewhat relatedly, I hate hate hate clickpads. They are so much slower, unintuitive, and finicky yet every single laptop these days has the useless damn things.<p>I used to be so efficient with touchpads with tactile left and right mouse buttons. Now my modern laptop is practically useless to me without an external mouse, which significantly reduces its flexibility. I have spent <i>days</i> fiddling with utilities in Linux to alter settings to a state where its barely tolerable if I absolutely must use it.