High Resolution Scrolling On Linux Progressing, Apple Magic Mouse Support In Linux 5.15

Being worked on for several years now on the Linux desktop has been high resolution scrolling including work for it around X Input, the libinput library used both by X.Org and Wayland systems, and the kernel driver side for the HID/input devices to support it. The latest user-space work is high resolution scroll wheel support within the next libinput release. Separately, with Linux 5.15 is now additionally support for high resolution scrolling with the Apple Magic Mouse.

Peter Hutterer of Red Hat who serves as the Linux input expert and is responsible for much of the high resolution scrolling work released libinput 1.18-rc1. With this new snapshot there is support for hold gestures and high resolution scroll wheel support. Peter notes in that announcement that the high resolution wheel scrolling replaces the earlier pointer axis API.

On Peter's blog he has written more about this high resolution scroll wheel support. Via Twitter, Peter also shared a video showing the smoothness of that enhanced scroll wheel support:

libinput and xf86-input-libinput with high-resolution wheel support. First three seconds are a normal wheel mouse, the rest is a high-res wheel scroll - notice the smoothness. pic.twitter.com/7xCIAcDX4g

— Peter Hutterer (@who_t) September 3, 2021

And then on the high resolution scrolling support at large, Linux 5.15 adds high resolution scrolling for the Apple Magic Mouse.

The HID pull also includes support for GHLive PS4 dongles, improved stylus battery reporting, and other enhancements to the various HID drivers.