this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2026
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Linux input expert Peter Hutterer of Red Hat announced today the first release candidate of libinput 1.31, the input handling library used by both modern X.Org Server and Wayland desktop environments.

One of the most notable end-user features with the upcoming libinput 1.31 release is enabling support for fast 3-finger swipes when 3-finger drag is enabled. Hutterer explained of the fast three-finger swipes event:

"Related to touchpads: we now support fast 3fg swipes when 3fg drag is enabled. Previously, enabling 3fg drag meant 3fg swipe was no longer available since the finger movement for both is physically identical. However, swipe gestures are tightly integrated into some desktops so we now support a "fast swipe": three fingers that move quickly and [immediately] trigger a swipe, not a 3fg drag. The timeout is intentionally quite short, the drag is still the primary feature. The above applies to 4fg swipe/drag if enabled."

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[โ€“] trevor@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Three-finger drag is such a nice feature that I miss from macOS, but apparently nobody knows what it's used for (according to the Phoronix comments)?

Three-finger drag allows you to drag anything that you would otherwise have to double-tap and hold to drag with your trackpad. It is not a gesture.

This libinput update allows you to have three-finger drag and three-finger swipe gestures, which is something the macOS implementation cannot do.

Three finger drag is probably the biggest reasons I still own a couple of Macs