Linux Touchpad Like MacBook Update: 2023 Progress on Smooth Scrolling

Re:Linux Touchpad Like MacBook Update: 2023 Progress on Smoo... by al_borland on Tuesday March 05, 2024 @07:17PM (#39610761)

My first laptop was a Thinkpad and I used the trackpoint exclusively, because the trackpad was so small and awful (this was around 2001). At the time I said something similar, that the trackpoint is the best. Years later, probably around 2007 I got my first MacBook Pro and the trackpad was great. Many years after that got I got work laptop with a trackpoint on it and had a really problem getting used to it again... the trackpad was also bad, so I just used a mouse all the time.

I think the trackpoint can be great, but more adaptation is required and most people aren't willing to go through it.

My dad also ended up with some sort of tendon injury that he attributed to the using the trackpoint on his laptop all day, every day, which I've never experienced, but it has always been in the back of my mind.

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Re:Linux Touchpad Like MacBook Update: 2023 Progress on Smoo... by dTal on Wednesday March 06, 2024 @06:15AM (#39614704)

Quite possible the trackpoint was genuinely worse in 2007 than in 2001. Like Windows 95 itself, huge amounts of human factors research went into making it worthwhile when it was new and unproven, with usability studies deriving the optimal curves and constants. People described it as feeling like telepathy. And like Windows itself, some time between then and now, everyone seems to have forgotten that it's a hard problem and just started YOLOing whatever random stuff "feels right".

Rant: On my T480 - an extremely popular, flagship Thinkpad - the trackpoint is unusable out of the box on Linux - it crawls at a snails pace unless I manually max out the sensitivity in sysfs, and also fiddle with xinput (no configuration is possible on Wayland). What is worse, infuriatingly, the curve seems to frequently change whenever libinput is updated, requiring me to go and find another set of fiddles to bring it roughly into line. This is clearly not the output of a structured, empirical, research-based approach to the issue, but of someone just fucking around with the constants for one reason or another. It does not feel like telepathy, and it makes my wrist hurt in short order if I overuse it (luckily the laptop also has a generous touchpad).

I dunno, maybe it's better on Windows. But I'd be amazed if anyone cared enough to make sure that 90s usability research was still valid, on modern variants of trackpoint sensors and modern high resolution screens.

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