This driver works great on various distros but specifically for myself provides a working solution for PopOS 20.04 (or Ubuntu 20.04) with Apple Magic Mouse 2 scrolling.

I know this will likely get me flamed, but while Linux is and continues to be my computing platform of choice the past few decades for work and personal computing, my workplace requires me to use an Apple laptop. I like Apple and OSX, no real complaints – not my personal operating system of choice for computing, but I’ll acknowledge I understand the passion for the “Apple experience and ecosystem”. I also own and cherish my Apple iPad, in my opinion their “devices” are the shiznit. Apple computers, meh, not so much of a fan, I’ll take a PC with Linux every day – but Apple “devices” are amazing. Who knows, with the ARM transition maybe they’ll swing to allowing user’s more control over the hardware, but I doubt it.

After logging off work for the day, it’s time for me to get back to my Dell XPS running linux (Note: This may be replaced in the near future with a System76 laptop, they make great systems!). I’m usually running PopOS or Manjaro typically, and then using virtualization for testing various distros or blowing crap up. One of my pet peeves is being able to use my peripherals, like keyboards and mice, for any system I’m using, it just makes things easier. This can be difficult with some Apple accessories, but luckily Linux and the open source community is pretty darn amazing at hardware support. If someone owns it, there’s a decent chance someone has worked to get it working in Linux.

This brings me to the Apple Magic Mouse 2. I was allocated one that I use for work, but under Linux the track pad finger scrolling has always been kinda wanky at best, often time non-working entirely. There are several projects around to improve the experience, but my best experience has been the Linux-Magic-Trackpad-2-Driver project by RicardoEPRodrigues. This project has taken the known hid-magicmouse driver drivers and additionally tweaked some things to further address some of the known Apple Magic Mouse 2 bluetooth issues. It’s an easy install, has worked flawlessly for me for quite some time, and I’ve communicated with the project owner on occasion on some minor systemd installation tweaks for various distributions. Oh, and it’s on GitHub of course 🙂

PopOS 20.04 (Ubuntu 20.04) with Apple Magic Mouse 2 Scrolling Installation:

sudo apt-get install dkms
git clone https://github.com/RicardoEPRodrigues/Linux-Magic-Trackpad-2-Driver.git
cd Linux-Magic-Trackpad-2-Driver
chmod u+x install.sh
sudo ./install.sh

Usually after installation, I’ll adjust the mouse speed and/or acceleration, but otherwise it just works from my experience.

Thank you Linux and the open source community.