Perfectly replicating a Mac trackpad on a Linux system might be the final push for me to switch. Once those gestures are part of your flow, they are almost impossible to live without. It is one of the primary things Apple has ever gotten consistently right.
It’s great to see how different people priorities are! For me this is one of the least interesting features ever, I have never used a laptop with a trackpad to do any (meaningful) work. That said, I am really glad if people with different priorities will get the chance to have their preferred flow in Linux!
I don’t usually like trackpads on other machines, but the gestures to switch desktops, zoom, change pages, and everything else that Apple builds in become so ingrained in your muscles that they save an enormous amount of navigational time. There really is no comparison. It is one of the essential features that keeps me from fully switching to Linux for every device in my home.
They always make them out of materials that feel luxurious to touch, which is another bit of computing philosophy I’ve adopted from them—if it touches my body, it should be extremely high quality. This goes for trackpads, mice, keyboards, clothes, and furniture.
Even if you don’t use their machines, it is worth checking out a demo of their gestures just to make you reconsider what a trackpad should be.
Oh no, I get it, I do have a work-issued macbook pro which I am currently not using in favour of a Linux machine. The main reason for me is ergonomics. My laptopt is closed in a vertical stand, and I cannot imagine myself moving the hands so much do to stuff. I do basically everything what the trackpad does with i3 keybindings, which I find not only faster, but also allow me to reduce movement of my arms and ultimately limiting wrist/arms stress.
Obviously I completely agree that if one has or prefers to work with trackpads, apple ones are honestly great.
It’s designed like pushing paper towards you or away from you—I actually find it more natural. Imagine the screen is a long piece of paper continuing down to your hand and you’ll see what I mean. Push away to push the screen up, pull towards yourself to pull the screen down.
Plus, if you don’t like it, it is easily customized in the trackpad preferences.
Nice. I’m using a dell 7440 latitude with Mint Cinnamon and the track pad is glitchy to say the least.
Smooth scrolling? Scrolling on linux isn’t smooth? 😶🌫️ Does mac have some kind of delay with an ease in / ease out?
There’s a lot of different aspects to a good touchpad experience but from my knowledge linux distros do not implement smooth scrolling, apps have to do it individually
But what is smooth scrolling? It’s a serious question.
I always thought my scrolling experience was quite fluid. Even used a mac for about a week and went back to linux without missing anything.
responsive, high fps scrolling instead of big discrete jumps. Makes it feel like there’s a direct connection between your finger movement and the content on screen. I’m guessing you’re either using mainly apps that already have decent smooth scrolling or maybe you just aren’t sensitive to it. There’s also kinetic scrolling, where stuff will keep moving after your finger lifts as if it had momentum, the acceleration profile and some other stuff. I’m not sure how much this post covers
Nice. I’ve personally been using Linux on a Mid 2012, and the touchpad responsiveness + gesture support has been one of my favorite things about the experience.
Really nice to see gestures in general getting more support in the wider Linux dev community 👍
Where exactly is this downloadable? I read the blog post and followed the links and still haven’t figured out what to do.
