Imagine if all doctors and surgeons were volunteers; that’s the situation you have now with a lot of OSS.
It's a concept that basically boils down to "people would not be smart enough to understand the code unaided". This is plainly wrong. I speak from experience of diving into some horrible code base.
It also assumes that reproducing the functionality from scratch would be hard. Looking at all the reimplementations of A where A is one of unix, X, web browser, network stack, SQL database and other complex techno, it is also clearly not true.
I also don't see bus factor the same way you do. People can be smart enough to understand the code, but unless someone actually goes and actively takes up code maintenance the project will slowly fade and disappear (for example the synaptics driver that libinput replaced https://github.com/freedesktop/xorg-xf86-input-synaptics/com...).
> The xf86-input-evdev driver is in maintenance mode at this point. The last commit was in May 2018 and, since the 2.10.0 release four years ago, there have been a total of 19 commits. It is still shipped in RHEL 8 in order to support "crazy devices" that don't work otherwise. Similarly, xf86-input-synaptics had a 1.9.0 release in 2016 and has had nine commits since. It is effectively dead and all touchpads should be working with libinput at this point. Since libinput took over from xf86-input-synaptics three years ago, no one has stepped up to say they want to continue maintaining it, Hutterer said.
Working software should keep working.
> In the old synaptics driver, we added options whenever something new came up and we tried to make those options generic. This was a big mistake. The driver now has over 70 configuration options resulting in a test matrix with a googolplex of combinations. In other words, it's completely untestable. To make a device work users often have to find the right combination of options from somewhere, write out a root-owned config file and then hope this works. Why do we still think this is acceptable? Even worse: some options are very specific to hardware but still spread in user forum examples like an STD during spring break.
From reading around, most of the distros started deprecating synaptics because it wasn't actively being worked on, didn't work with Wayland, required root for a bunch of stuff unnecessarily etc.
So what causes this difference? Is the Windows driver just better than the Linux driver?
It’s hard to find other details, at least in public...
Simply put the touchpad on the 16" Mac feels like its from the future, recognition is perfect, multi-finger gestures are consistent and always recorded so you can flip around between workspaces and after a day or two it becomes so ingrained that it gets out the way and you stop even thinking about it, it becomes fluent in a way other touchpads don't.
On a recent Thinkpad with Linux I just use the TrackPoint, I've never gotten the touchpad to be more than merely acceptable.
Frankly I still prefer working on my Thinkpad at home on my stuff but the touchpad on the Mac has ruined every other touchpad I interact with entirely.
Generally I like the Macbook and OSX as someone who hadn't ever touched it til a few months ago is a pleasant OS for development, there isn't anything in there I really hate, it feels like a linux distro with a nice DE/UI mostly.
Oh and I really like iTerm2, that's a really nice piece of software.
I use both Windows and Fedora enthusiastically on desktop machines, but recognize that even high-end Windows laptops have trouble matching my 2012 Macbook in terms of input. Apple has been miles ahead of the competition in this specific regard for years. I would love to use Linux on a laptop, but although the combination of libinput and modern Qt and Gtk are helping here they're still ways off [1].
Many people who have only used Linux and Windows on laptops for years assume that a touchpad is only there as an emergency. That you cannot seriously use a laptop without a peripheral.
On Macbooks, that's simply not the case - I never use a mouse with my Macbook. It's easy and probably deserved to discount Macbooks in other areas (even in terms of e.g. keyboard input, looking at Apple's 2016-2019 lineup), but you don't know how good an input tool a touchpad can be unless you've spent some time familiarizing yourself with a Mac touchpad.
Apple sells desktop versions of the touchpad [2]. It might be difficult to believe, but they do so unironically. I bought one for when I connect my Macbook to a big screen.
[1]: I found that Ubuntu has a better laptop input experience when running in a VMWare Fusion than running natively on a Macbook, despite all hardware working out of the box...
[2]: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MJ2R2LL/A/magic-trackpad-...
IMO the best way to control Apple devices is KB + mouse + magic trackpad. Mouse is of course superior for precise movement such as highlighting text, but the trackpad itself is worth it just for the gestures.
Yes, they do, I'm using one. Aside of haptic feedback which allows it to go really quiet, it's really nothing special - just a regular touchpad. I'm also using the internal one in my Dell XPS - if it was slightly bigger it would be just as good. In the past I've used Lenovo Yoga one and it was just as good either.
I'm using touchpads exclusively on GNU/Linux for years now. It's a myth that Apple touchpads are "magical" - it's just macOS which comes with good defaults, but if you put some effort in it you can get it just as comfortable on GNU/Linux as on macOS (sans continuous gestures, I have to admit that's the one thing I envy them).
> even high-end Windows laptops have trouble matching my 2012 Macbook in terms of input
That's only because vendor drivers on Windows are notoriously bad. My girlfriend is using a mid-2012 13" MBP and its touchpad is rather meh. Not bad, but I've used much better ones. Current Macbook touchpads are better than the 2012 ones though.
I never use mice, only trackpads, on Windows laptops and Windows laptops from 2013 with Linux on them, and it's fine. c: And by fine I mean bad, but that's just laptops, as an ontological concept, to me.
Worth noting that there are still usage scenarios where a mouse beats a touchpad (i.e. image editing, pointer centric games), but overall touchpads don't have to be the inferior option if your computer is built for it.
Unfortunately Huawei's reputation is mud these days thanks to the Chinese government. They made pretty nice laptops, though the aesthetics are obviously imitating somebody.
It might sound elitist, but if someone tells me they have a better input interface than one of apple's trackpad, my mind goes somewhere else. I even replaced the mouse at my work with their trackpad.
I remember when I was big at CSGO and wanted to play a few matches on the go one time. I still ranked pretty high, with a TRACKPAD.
I don't think it sounds elitist, but just presumptuous. I don't actually think a TrackPoint is superior in every case, and I think Apple has done a great job for a trackpad, but at the same time I'd hate to go back to a trackpad for general use.
Exactly. I like how Professor Galloway (professor at NYU, investor, podcaster, etc...) puts it - successful businesses create time machines. People will pay large sums of money to gain more time.
In Linux, wrists keep triggering touch events as you type. Screens start scrolling, focus goes to random things, and everyone swears. You end up having to hold your hands right over the keyboard in a very unnatural way to avoid accidental mouse interaction.
I’ve had this problem on my current hp laptop that replaced my mbp too. It’s a Linux concepts problem. Linux simply doesn’t cope with hands near the touchpad.
Lots of coders I know use Linux on laptops. They swap recipes for how to disable the touchpad completely.
<sobbing/>
Then again, I'm pretty sure Synaptics has wrist detection built into the firmware of the trackpad itself. I suppose Apple and Windows do this in software for models that don't support this and that's why it's going wrong.
I'm not saying that people don't use Linux on laptops by the way, I meant that the overlap between people who run Linux and use a MBP isn't very large (because Linux on Apple can be anything from annoying to install to near impossible).
But, as far as I know, Apple still releases the source code for Darwin, right? So shouldn't it be possible to port the trackpad functionality from there? Or did Apple hide the trackpad driver in a closed source blob?
Maybe I'm in the tiny minority here, but I much prefer the way touchpad handling on Linux behaves compared to both Windows and macOS. At least on sway, it feels more 'accurate' than either of those two - you move your finger and the cursor actually goes to where you want it.
> But, as far as I know, Apple still releases the source code for Darwin, right? So shouldn't it be possible to port the trackpad functionality from there?
Unfortunately not! I worked on reverse engineering a driver for the SPI touchpad found in newer (but not too new) Macbooks and based most of it on packet captures from Windows' Event Log [1]
[1] https://github.com/cb22/macbook12-spi-driver/issues/3#issuec...
I have this problem as well. The Synaptics driver seems to have some palm detection logic but it does nothing. Perhaps my trackpad has no support for it.
> They swap recipes for how to disable the touchpad completely.
Sadly the surface I usually place my laptop on doesn't have space for a mouse...
Enable the option to sleep the touchpad when the user starts typing.
In KDE: system settings -> input devices -> touchpad -> disable while typing. (this is enabled by default)
In Gnome: I'm not using it, but apparently https://askubuntu.com/questions/923060/how-to-disable-touchp...
It's a bit better when i disable touch click, but then i have to physically click the touchpad which is harder on the fingers as well !
Apple with tighter integration delivers the actual touchpad movement data and not a faked mouse event.
Windows 10 has had work done in this area too but not sure the details.
But no matter what, two finger scrolling and zooming won't ever be as smooth and "step free" under Windows/Linux... once experienced, cannot be missed.
That's not true. I'm not sure exactly what's changed but when running Firefox with the Wayland backend I've found that scrolling is continuous.
There are two modes of operation, what you dislike is the default; the other is called tap-to-click, which doesn’t give you haptic feedback and you can click however fast you want. Opinion is divided on this, with many diehards swearing by the haptic feedback. I prefer tap-to-click.
BUTTON 1 - BUTTON 2 - BUTTON 3
In your situation, you have to tap, lift finger, place finger to move, lift finger, tap, etc. In the other situation, you have to place finger, press lightly, move finger, press lightly, move finger, etc.
Using tap-to-click can't be faster than the other situation.
That said, I use both. Sometimes I just tap, sometimes I press, sometimes I press harder.
I guess if it's a "feel" thing it should be possible to replicate it with lots of tweaking, but I don't think many people who run Linux on laptops use the Apple trackpad much so the overlap between the people who want this and the people who care to write such drivers probably isn't big enough to come up with a Macbook style driver.
For example rest two fingers and press to click, that’s a right click. But rest two fingers and click with the thumb, that’s still a right click, not a three finger click. Same for two finger scrolling. That’s a couple of simple examples but there are a lot of subtle corner cases like that all around the experience which are not just about tuning some values.
And I also cannot put the difference into words, but if you have Ubuntu (even with synaptics drivers) and MacBook side by side, there is a noticeable difference in how they behave and feel but even by having them side-by-side, I can't consciously tell the difference, even if I feel it.
I don't know exactly why this is happening, and there is no in-browser option that can overcome this difference, e.g. disabling smooth scrolling and enabling XInput2 helps but does not overcome the difference. It seems to be something more fundamental in how the drivers work and deliver input to the user interface.
So the quest continues...
After lockdown of course...
The trackpad is part of the reasons (along with macOS, despite its recent slew of bugs) people happily pay more for that others see as “tax”.
Try it out on someone else’s MacBook or a demo machine.
2. Use Logiops to configure buttons (unfortunately requires compiling it yourself):
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Logitech_MX_Master#Logi...
But the device was introduced in 2017, and you mention Ubuntu 16. Newer devices require newer drivers.