Is that really still a problem? I've always had trackpads work straight-off 100%, and find battery life to be way better under linux (perhaps because it's not running a million unwanted services.)

▲

greazy 2 days ago | parent [-]

What laptop and which os are you running?

I'm thinking taking an existing laptop (say hp), installing debian variant.

I'd be intrigued what other options are out there as I'm trying to move the whole family over

▲

arp242 2 days ago | parent [-]

Trackpads pretty much always work out of the box, but typically do not support more advanced features, and/or they're kind of a pain to set up. I think you and the person you're replying to are talking about different things(?)

Whether these advanced features are desirable is of course a matter of opinion. Personally, I find macbooks very hard to use because the trackpad never does what I want on account of having the motor skills of a spastic five year old. So I don't miss this at all.

	▲	greazy 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I agree they work out of the box but badly. I use non of the advanced features (gestures) of trackpads apart from two fingers to right click. I still struggle with most trackpads on linux. On mac I disable nearly all gestures, I prefer the keyboard shortcuts. You are right though, we're probably all talking about different aspects of trackpad usage.