# my touchpad has gone insane....

## the_slash

i have a dell inspiron 1000 and ever since i started kde for the first time, i have had nothing but problems from the touchpad. i have figured out this much:

it appears to be a generic ps/2 mouse of some kind.

i have tried using synaptics drivers with it, which almost ruined my system. right now, everything is fine but this annoying little mouse. everytime i move it i end up with my toolbar being on the left side of the screen and all the icons are rearanged. i almost accidentaly deleted a file because the touchpad went berserk and clicked delete. if anyone knows a solution to this very troublesome and annoying problem, i would appreciate it.

----------

## tom61

Does the pad still work on other OSes?

----------

## the_slash

yup. it worked on suse and xp just fine.

----------

## jamapii

If you're using kernel 2.6.11, try 2.6.10. My touchpad on Dell Latitude D800 has some problems starting with 2.6.11

----------

## racoontje

 *the_slash wrote:*   

> i have a dell inspiron 1000 and ever since i started kde for the first time, i have had nothing but problems from the touchpad. i have figured out this much:
> 
> it appears to be a generic ps/2 mouse of some kind.
> 
> i have tried using synaptics drivers with it, which almost ruined my system. right now, everything is fine but this annoying little mouse. everytime i move it i end up with my toolbar being on the left side of the screen and all the icons are rearanged. i almost accidentaly deleted a file because the touchpad went berserk and clicked delete. if anyone knows a solution to this very troublesome and annoying problem, i would appreciate it.

 

Please don't explain further, we might fix the problem  :Wink:  How do you know it's a Synaptics touchpad?

----------

## plate

Well, the fact that all Inspirons seem to have one might be something of a giveaway...  :Razz:  I'd advise prudence with Synaptics. The Changelogs for the last few kernel updates are full of changes to the driver, I doubt there's any other piece of hardware that's received so many patches over the past six to eight weeks... 

My touchpad (ALPS Glidepoint, a Synaptics variant on Sony Vaios a.o.) wasn't recognised as such before kernel release 2.6.10-r4, up until then it was just a plain old IMPS pointer. I'm currently using the synaptics driver in 2.6.11 with CONFIG_INPUT_EVDEV=m and a heavily modified xorg.conf, but it is slow and double-tapping doesn't work. All this is supposed to be fixed in 2.6.12-rc1, but for me the upgrade breaks it again. The hardware detection part is turning out alright (with reenabled hardware tapping, apparently), but now it's my xorg.conf that is out of whack again - X exits with "no core pointer". I haven't looked any further into this yet, maybe there's a common cause and a fix we could both use?

----------

## the_slash

my current kernel is 2.6.9 i believe. if that helps any.

----------

## the_slash

lol. i fixed it. just like my last problem  :Wink: 

----------

## hanj

 *Quote:*   

> If you're using kernel 2.6.11, try 2.6.10. My touchpad on Dell Latitude D800 has some problems starting with 2.6.11

 

I just switched to 2.6.11 and my touchpad is freakin' too.. jittery.. low response.

I have Dell Inspiron 8500

hanji

----------

## DeChief

same here. Inspiron 8600C.

Nitro Surces 2.6.11 the Touchpad is going crazy  :Wink: 

Switching back to 2.6.10 all is going on normal

----------

## GenKreton

also searching about the touchpad.... I came from 2.6.10 on a dell 600m using generic drivers for it. tapping to click hardly works and moving large distances is ok but short isn't.

----------

## dieterv

I also have been bitten by this, my first kernel/hardware problem with Gentoo in over a year  :Crying or Very sad: 

I'm using a Sony Vaio (ALPS Glidepoint touchpad), and with 2.6.11-r4 it gets recognized as being just that.

Only now the tapping is waaaay to sensitive(just dragging the pointer clicks stuff), and tap-drag

to select stuff no longer works.

I'm back to 2.6.10-r6 where the touchpad is recognized as PS/2 Generic Mouse on isa0060/serio1

and everything works as expected "out of the box"...

And I tought 2.6 was supposed to be stable, grrrr  :Twisted Evil: 

----------

## Mark Clegg

Got me too this one....

2.6.10-gentoo-dev-r6:  Name="PS/2 Generic Mouse"

2.6.11-gentoo-dev-r4:  Name="AlpsPS/2 ALPS TouchPad"

Using 2.6.11, the mouse is difficult to position accurately, has a tendency to want to go in a straight line, and for short moves, seems to issue button clicks at random.

Going back to 2.6.10 and it works fine.

This is on a Tochiba Satellite 1900

EDIT: adding kernel event support and using the Synaptics driver in X has seemingly resolved the issues.

----------

## dieterv

Indeed, event support and synaptics with gentoo-dev-sources-2.6.11-r4 does work.

Though Xorg does not recognize the alps device as a synaptics touchpad and gives an error about this in its logs, strangly it does work as it should, except SHMConfig, wich has no effect whatsoever. Sadly this makes the synclient application unusable to rapidly test synaptics configurations. Oh well...

I also found a kernel patch (alps.pathc.gz) in /usr/share/doc/synaptics-0.14.0/, but apparently the patch is already applied  :Shocked: 

Here's my config for those who are lazy  :Wink: 

```

Section "InputDevice"

    Identifier "Touchpad"

    Driver     "synaptics"

    Option     "SendCoreEvents"

    Option     "Device"               "/dev/input/mouse0"

    Option     "Protocol"             "auto-dev"

    # Synaptics driver configuration

    Option     "SHMConfig"            "on"

    Option     "LeftEdge"             "120"

    Option     "RightEdge"            "830"

    Option     "TopEdge"              "120"

    Option     "BottomEdge"           "650"

    Option     "FingerLow"            "8"

    Option     "FingerHigh"           "9"

    Option     "MaxTapTime"           "200"

    Option     "MaxTapMove"           "150"

    Option     "MaxDoubleTapTime"     "200"

    Option     "ClickTime"            "100"

    Option     "FastTaps"             "0"

    Option     "EmulateMidButtonTime" "75"

    Option     "VertScrollDelta"      "20"

    Option     "HorizScrollDelta"     "20"

    Option     "MinSpeed"             "0.3"

    Option     "MaxSpeed"             "1"

    Option     "AccelFactor"          "0.05"

    Option     "EdgeMotionMinZ"       "30"

    Option     "EdgeMotionMaxZ"       "160"

    Option     "EdgeMotionMinSpeed"   "200"

    Option     "EdgeMotionMaxSpeed"   "200"

    Option     "EdgeMotionUseAlways"  "1"

    Option     "UpDownScrolling"      "1"

    Option     "TouchpadOff"          "0"

    Option     "GuestMouseOff"        "0"

    Option     "LockedDrags"          "0"

    Option     "RTCornerButton"       "0"

    Option     "RBCornerButton"       "0"

    Option     "LTCornerButton"       "0"

    Option     "LBCornerButton"       "0"

    Option     "TapButton1"           "1"

    Option     "TapButton2"           "2"

    Option     "TapButton3"           "3"

    Option     "CircularScrolling"    "1"

    Option     "CircScrollDelta"      "0.1"

    Option     "CircScrollTrigger"    "2"

    Option     "CircularPad"          "0"

    Option     "PalmDetect"           "0"

    Option     "PalmMinWidth"         "10"

    Option     "PalmMinZ"             "200"

    Option     "CoatingSpeed"         "0"

EndSection

```

edit: updated the config: works even better now  :Smile: Last edited by dieterv on Thu Apr 07, 2005 7:58 pm; edited 1 time in total

----------

## GenKreton

is it a good idea to use synaptics driver with alps touch pads? Mine worked fine before without this extra driver.

----------

## dtor

For 2.6.11 users not using Synaptics X driver I recommend turning off ALPS support by booting with psmouse.proto=exps (or adding "options psmouse proto=exps" to /etc/modprobe.conf if psmouse is a module).

If you are using Synaptics X driver please set protocol to "auto-dev" in xorg.conf so in case event device moves around it still "automagically" work.

If you have issues with ALPS in 2.6.12-rc1+ complain on LKML - we'll try to resolve.

----------

## dtor

 *GenKreton wrote:*   

> is it a good idea to use synaptics driver with alps touch pads? Mine worked fine before without this extra driver.

 

If you want scrolling and ability to fire different actions when you tap in the corners as opposed to the center of the touchpad - then yes.

----------

## GenKreton

adding psmouse.proto=exps was a beautiful trick. Feels better than ever. I may eventually try synaptics but it seems like more work...only thing I could care to get working is scrolling.

Thanks again!

----------

## val

 *dieterv wrote:*   

> 
> 
> I also found a kernel patch (alps.pathc.gz) in /usr/share/doc/synaptics-0.14.0/, but apparently the patch is already applied 
> 
> 

 

I think that's the root of the problem.  :Wink: 

Anyway, the synaptics driver is neat!  I'm going to have to get used to what it can do.  :Shocked: .  Scrolling is neat, but some other features are taking me by suprise!

What is circular scrolling?

----------

## dieterv

 *Quote:*   

> What is circular scrolling?

 

Very, very, very cool stuff  :Very Happy: 

Basicly you do a circular drag on the touchpad, starting in a corner of it.

As you drag counter or clockwise you scroll up or down in the application that has focus.

Usefull in large texts or webpages, as you can scroll all you want in one fluid motion  :Wink: 

----------

## val

^^^ Oh neat!  I just tried it out on this page.  :Very Happy: 

So, where can one read about the various gestures and features of the touchpad?

----------

## dieterv

 *Quote:*   

> So, where can one read about the various gestures and features of the touchpad?

 

/usr/share/doc/synaptics-versionnumber or google... remember: "google is your friend"  :Wink: 

----------

## val

Oh, there's a search site called google?  I didn't know.  :Rolling Eyes:   :Confused: 

Uh, thanks.  I think.

----------

## paolo

Same prob here (Acer TM291Lci) updating from 2.6.9-gentoo-r1 to 2.6.11-gentoo-r5.

In the next days I'll try one of those solutions.

Thanks guys.

----------

## val

Yeah, I still haven't found good documentation in /usr/share/doc or google.

There is this one feature that is driving me crazy.  When I drag in the corners, the browser goes back or forward a page.  It's happening more by accident than on purpose, so I would like to turn it off.  Does anybody know how to turn that off either by configuring the browser or the touchpad?  Thanks.

----------

