Linux Touchpad Support
Hey guys. For those of you using linux for their laptop, what's the best distro featuring out-of-the-box support for touchpad gestures?
8 Replies
the one that works on your laptop
https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html <-- grab a 16-64gb pen, and install this on it
Ventoy
Ventoy is an open source tool to create bootable USB drive for ISO files. With ventoy, you don't need to format the disk again and again, you just need to copy the iso file to the USB drive and boot it.
then throw in a ton of distros, like ubuntu, pop_os, fedora, debian, linux mint ... even chimera os
then, boot into a live environment and try them
see the one that you like and does what you want and works with the hardware you have
Hey thanks. I actually use linux on desktop. Installed mint on my brother's laptop; not good. Been thinking about installing pop_os. I think it'll be supported pretty well.
By the way, thank you for throwing in Ventoy in your response. First time I heard about. Might use it from now on
ventoy is an hidden gem
the problem with linux is that there is no way to say which distro is better for you, and you have to try a few
you might have touchpad working on ubuntu, but then the software you need isnt available in the snap store or the wifi doesnt work
you might use linux mint and actually have an amazing experience on that laptop
its really impossible to say which distro will work on any device without trying a few
(by the way, ive always had good experiences with debian and linux mint on real hardware)
Yeah, I agree with what you said. It's very difficult to find a distro that would have at least 50% of what you need out of the box.
Keep in mind that the newer the hardware, the least compatibility it will have. For various reasons, mostly related to how drivers are licensed, Linux doesn't have the ability to add compatibility with brand new hardware as quickly as we'd like it to.
In that regard you will likely have better results with rolling-release distributions. I recommend OpenSUSE Tumbleweed since it's a nice balance between usability, amount of packages and frequency of updates, though it may not be the best if you're not comfortable with Linux just yet.
It's very difficult to find a distro that would have at least 50% of what you need out of the box.What do you need though? That could help giving better recommendations. Personally, the most frequent issues I've had are the ones that I care the least for: bluetooth and printers.
tumbleweed is actually a really good recommendation
and it's way way harder to break the kernel