Best trackpad for Linux?

worldofgeese@lemmy.world to Linux@lemmy.ml – 30 points –

Is it Apple's Magic Trackpad? If I dual-boot Windows (for work, I swear!) does it work equally as well across both?

15

I bought a used magic trackpad 1 to use on Linux. It works quite well out of the box including multi touch capabilities but sometimes if you do a lot of movement in one go it will lag behind. The newer ones can be used wired and use higher Bluetooth versions so that's hopefully not an issue.

One noticeable limitation for all is that they run at 90 Hz which is noticeable on a 144 Hz screen, but there aren't really alternatives as far as I could find.

I have a magic trackpad 2 (maybe 3, not sure) and haven't noticed any lagging issues. I mainly use it wired, but the times I did use it wirelessly I didn't notice any lag either.

Unfortunately I didn't have gestures ootb, though that could be a KDE plasma thing, since they have touchpad gestures like two finger scroll and tap to click disabled by default as well.

Setting up gestures using touchegg was easy enough though.

Does that work purely wired?

It does work wirelessly, but I'm not sure if it's also stable long-term since I mostly use it wired.

I think you misread but that does answer my question too ;)

Do you mean a USB trackpad for desktop use or an integrated one in a laptop?

I'd also be interested in the former.

Sorry, I should have clarified: Bluetooth or USB-connected trackpad. I use a fancy mechanical keyboard so I need some other input device that isn't my laptop's integrated trackpad.

I'm looking for one of these too, have got very comfortable with my trackpad on my laptop with hyprland and gnome gestures, would like that on my PC too

I really love my apple track pad on my Manjaro setup. It's big and smooth and super comfortable. Nobody makes 3rd party USB track pads

The trackpad by default on my Asus Tuf Gaming laptop works fine. I wouldn't buy Apple products in general as they're usually overpriced for their functionality.

I generally dislike apple, but I think trackpads and laptops with long battery life are the 2 parts where they actually excel

OP is talking about external USB trackpads