Touchpad Right-Click, Some Ideas For Linux OS...

[GusCE6]

Through sheer persistence and with help from here I've managed to come a`ways with the ASUS' Bionic Beaver Linux (as always it's a chimera "throwaway" ASUS).

However- and I've noticed this is often a problem with both Linux and Puppy Linux- on the ASUS' touchpad right-clicking does not work, it acts as if you were left-clicking. Thus without a mouse plugged in there are a number of things you cannot do. Puppy Linux 6.3.0 does have a Settings screen that allows you to decide what tapping does, so you can have a sort of right-click, functional enough- but I do not see any such thing here.

Another problem was the fact that the distro did NOT come with the necessary codecs to run things like, oh, MP3 and MP4 files. Puppy Linux does, so why not Linux distros? Why not just include them rather than requiring people to go online and install them, which is something of a hassle.

As much as Windows does deserve the flack and mocking it gets there is no doubt they got one thing absolutely right- the new Dell came with Windows 10 installed, 64-Bit of course. With very few exceptions it runs 32-Bit software quite well. Given that most games and programs someone who has been computing for a long time are likely to be 32-Bit making 64-Bit Operating Systems backward-compatible with 32-Bit is absolutely vital. I seem to recall that Apple didn't do this, which was a HUGE advantage in Microsoft's favor.

Therefore why not just include 32-Bit compatibility with the distros themselves? This would save a lot of hassle and make it ready to go for such things even if someone went home and installed the distro from a DVD, as I did. No, I do not have the Internet where I live.

I like Linux, more so as I learn more about it, but these are flaws that need to be dealt with.

 

[GusCE6]

How does one get right-clicking working, and how does one get 32-Bit programs working? Windows 32-Bit work (mostly) by way of PlayOnLinux, but LINUX-Linux...no. Not even "Micron" and that little "Lemmings" game, which does work even on Puppy Linux 5.2.5 Lucid on the ancient Pentium 3 Sony VAIO.

 

[KGIII]

ASUS' Bionic Beaver

I did a brief search and it comes back to you. Do you mean you have an ASUS device that's running Ubuntu 18.04 (codename Bionic Beaver)? If so, that's a LTS release that lasts for five year. Those five years were up in May of 2023, meaning it is no longer supported.

Using an unsupported release is a bad idea for a variety of reasons, including security.

Therefore why not just include 32-Bit compatibility with the distros themselves?

Because there aren't enough people who use 32 bit hardware and are willing to spend their time testing. That's why Ubuntu dropped 32 bit support. Had there been enough people willing to test, we may still have a 32 bit Ubuntu family of distros.

You can add the 32 bit architecture to play games. I'm not a gamer but I seem to recall that being a step if you want to use Steam.

They don't ship with it enabled because it'd just be more bloat, making the .iso files even larger. While the numbers are changing, there aren't a whole lot of Linux desktop users that need 32 bit support.

By the way, your right clicking may work on a newer kernel. If you use a newer release, you can check into that.

 

[dos2unix]

Another problem was the fact that the distro did NOT come with the necessary codecs to run things like, oh, MP3 and MP4 files. Puppy Linux does, so why not Linux distros? Why not just include them rather than requiring people to go online and install them, which is something of a hassle.

This usually has a lot more to do with the vendors than the distro's. For example AMD gives the source code for their RADEON video drivers out, almost all Linux distro's include the drivers in their distro's. Nvidia on the other hand does not. They keep their drivers and source code closed and proprietary, so rather than deal with the legal issues, it's easier just to make people install their own drivers and codecs from 3rd party sources.

In Linux if you install VLC it installs all the codecs you need to run MP3a, opus, m4a's, etc... but some of these codecs are proprietary. I think all MP3 codecs expired in 2017 and some distros haven't updated their repos. But again, rather than keep track of every legal nuance, just let 3rd party software handle it for you.

Part of the cost of Windows goes to cover these things. That's why they have certain drivers and codecs that Linux doesn't. Distro's could start charging to cover these costs, but then Linux would likely lose a lot of appeak to the open source crowd.

The other thing I would add is just bandwidth to do it. Most distro's are volunteer based. Nobody gets paid to do this. They do the best they can. Some distro's have hundreds of people supporting them. Other's have less than a dozen. It's hard to keep track of every hardware device and every driver when there's only 3 or 4 of you doing all the work.