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Making the Best of MacBook Air Touchpad on Ubuntu (int3ractive.com)
75 points by eterps on Dec 2, 2018 | hide | past | favorite | 8 comments



I'm happy enough with the libinput driver that I don't want to go building a whole custom driver from source, but I really liked the "pixel-perfect scrolling in Firefox" tip at the end.


Same. I moved from Chrome OS to Arch Linux and this was one of the few things I missed.


Thank you for posting this! I recently installed linux on my MacBook Air and the biggest thing I missed from macOS was how nice the trackpad was, especially scroll inertia and 3-finger drag. Now I'm completely happy with my decision to switch.


Really happy to see I'm not the only one using Ubuntu on a MacBook air! If anyone is looking for the most customizable Ubuntu desktop (and my favorite window manager since 2010), I highly recommend compiz!

> sudo apt-get install gnome-session-flashback compiz compiz-core compiz-plugins compiz-plugins-default compiz-plugins-extra compiz-plugins-main compiz-plugins-main-default compiz-plugins-main-dev compizconfig-settings-manager

You'll log out of GNOME, click the settings cog, and select Flashback-Compiz. Then you'll see a wonderfully clean desktop, and then you can go into Applications -> Administration -> Compiz Config Settings, and you'll have complete and total control over your desktop!

This video is kind of gaudy but it might help explain what's possible: https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=Jb7kFWTj28g MINUS the horrible sidebar, that will be replaced with an upper toolbar similar to Mac.

I actually have a proper write-up for how to get the Ubuntu Desktop you deserve using compiz, but it's very much a WIP unfortunately.


This is cool, but this doesn't really work when you are running a wayland session. Also the default libinput driver on wayland already catches multitouch events with macbook without issues. The window manager just has to handle them.

I have done some exploring to get better touchpad gestures with gnome on wayland: https://github.com/mpiannucci/gnome-shell-extended-gestures . Its an incomplete project that I work on slowly when I get the time between my job and freelancing, but slowly coming along and meets my personal needs fine.


> Pinch gestures are not handled or configured

Why would the shell ever touch (hah) these? Pinch gestures are handled by apps like Evince and EoG for smooth zooming already!


Maybe pinch gestures are not the right way to put it. Maybe spread is better? Like with 3 or four fingers spreading from or converging to center. MacOS can handle it fine.


Oh. That. The one that revealed your desktop, right.




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