Re:Switching to Linux: Reclaim Your Freedom
by eth0up on Friday January 31, 2025 @09:37PM
(#42895115)
I've never used anything but Linux on the 20 or so laptops I've gone through. Suspend can be an issue, fan control can be suboptimal, but the only thing I find intolerable is the touchpad, so I use a mouse. I've had one or two bad laptops, but most were sufficient. If I had a laptop presently, it would be running Linux.
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Re:Switching to Linux: Reclaim Your Freedom
by porridgeraisin on Friday January 31, 2025 @11:28PM
(#42895644)
You use it with a mouse... That is telling. Have you considered that people actually want to use the laptop all by itself? Without an external mouse? That's the experience you're supposed to benchmark for.
Re:Switching to Linux: Reclaim Your Freedom
by eth0up on Saturday February 01, 2025 @08:18AM
(#42898067)
Yeah, and touchpad behavior in Linux can be configured to a satisfactory degree, but with admittedly excessive fenagling. Modifying dozens of different parameters in a command line interface to get full functionality is silly. The default settings can easily be interpreted as deliberate cruelty.
I am unusually OCD with touchpads though, and have a history of actually smashing them during times of high stress. Why the touchpad isn't taken more seriously in Linux-land is a mystery to me and certainly a point of contention. For all the other benefits of Linux on a laptop, it is something I've always just accepted and been otherwise very grateful for.
Re:Switching to Linux: Reclaim Your Freedom
by talldayo on Saturday February 01, 2025 @01:12PM
(#42900578)
Wayland has had 1:1 trackpad gestures as the default for years. I know this because I've been daily-driving Linux (both KDE and GNOME) with a Magic Trackpad for years now, and the experience out-of-box is better than my Mac.
In fact, I think Apple should take a page out of Linux' book and put cursor acceleration in system preferences instead of the terminal. The amount of work that Apple puts into enforcing controversial defaults is mind-boggling.