A bit over a year ago, I switched from macOS machines (which I’d been using since 1984) to a Framework laptop running Fedora Linux. The transition went surprisingly smoothly. I like that the Framework is completely user repairable and upgradable, and I’d been on a mission to switch everything I could to free and open-source software (FOSS). Many times throughout both my IT and medical careers, I’d been burned when the company selling a computer or software changed the product in ways that made it unusable for me, or radically increased licensing fees, or discontinued the product, or went out of business, or was found to be engaging in criminal activities or supporting people or organizations who did so. While I was running a Macintosh computer, I wasn’t using any of Apple’s cloud products (I like to keep my data local, even when companies pinkie swear they won’t peek) or subscription services, and I had pretty much migrated away from all their proprietary products except the hardware and operating system itself. I had been running several dozen Linux servers since the mid-1990’s, so giving up macOS ended up not being a big deal.
One thing I knew that I’d miss from the Mac was Apple’s incredibly smooth implementation of the trackpad. I’ve heard many complaints about trackpads, and people expressing surprise that I generally used the trackpad on my Macbook Pro for everything except gaming (which I don’t do often) and graphics design.
The trackpad on the Framework was actually better than I expected, but not really good enough. I don’t know why Linux devs (or Microsoft, for that matter) can’t duplicate Apple’s trackpad experience, but they don’t. I realized I really needed a regular mouse. I didn’t need anything fancy, but wanted two buttons and a scroll wheel. After reading a lot of online reviews, commentary, and discussions, I settled on a Logitech MX Master 3S.
It does the job, but falls short in two important ways. First, the “smooth scrolling” is jumpy. Everyone says “oh, you just need to use Solaar” but that isn’t it. Even with Solaar, windows scroll smoothly but the minimum increment of scrolling is several lines. I can start moving the scroll wheel and nothing… nothing… nothing… then the screen smoothly jumps four lines. By contrast, when I use the trackpad, I can scroll the screen just one or a few pixels. There’s no way to do that with the Logitech, or any other mouse I’ve tried. If the trackpad can do it, why can’t the mouse? I don’t know, but it’s a source of constant irritation.
The other problem is that Solaar (or the mouse) is unreliable. About once a day, the scroll wheel will stop working altogether or become really fast or agonizingly slow. I have to open Solaar and toggle the “Scroll Wheel Resolution” switch, which usually fixes the problem.
Is it really true that there are no working smooth scrolling mice for Linux?
—2p