Regression: touchscreen-as-input not recognized in recent kernels (Dell Venue 11 Pro 7130)

[Steven Collins]

Due to bug #1354598, my Dell Venue 11 Pro 7130 tablet is unusable as a tablet with the current Trusty kernel, so I have been attempting to find a more recent kernel for which the screen functions both as a display and a touch input device. No luck so far.

(Well, actually, oddly enough, that's not quite true: I installed the 05-Aug-2014 01:21 daily live CD of Kubuntu Active, which is i386 only, and *that* worked just fine, from a kernel/hardware perspective. But I'm hoping to get an amd64 kernel working.)

When booting either of the most recent Utopic kernel (3.16.0-6) and the kernel team's latest build of upstream (3.16.0-031600), the touchscreen is unresponsive to touch input, and inspection of the logs confirms that the multitouch device is not recognized as such.

Will run apport-collect. Also the udev logs attached to bug #1354598 may be interesting.

[Steven Collins (stevencollins)]

...or not. apport-collect not working for some reason. Will attach stuff by hand.

[Steven Collins (stevencollins)]

Sorry, should have been more explicit: touchscreen-as-input works fine in current Trusty kernel (again, see #1354598).

[Brad Figg (brad-figg)]

This change was made by a bot.

[Steven Collins (stevencollins)]

This may be related to:

https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=74241

but then again this was supposedly fixed in May:

https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/drivers/hid/hid-rmi.c?id=ba391e5a5ac6697b8bcae8c0d01439cb765d9ef8

[Joseph Salisbury (jsalisbury)]

Would it be possible for you to test the latest upstream kernel? Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds . Please test the latest v3.17 kernel[0].

If this bug is fixed in the mainline kernel, please add the following tag 'kernel-fixed-upstream'.

If the mainline kernel does not fix this bug, please add the tag: 'kernel-bug-exists-upstream'.

If you are unable to test the mainline kernel, for example it will not boot, please add the tag: 'kernel-unable-to-test-upstream'.
Once testing of the upstream kernel is complete, please mark this bug as "Confirmed".

Thanks in advance.

[0] http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.17-rc1-utopic/

[Steven Collins (stevencollins)]

I should be able to test this within the next couple of days, yes. Thanks.

[Steven Collins (stevencollins)]

Mainline kernel as of today (3.17-rc2-utopic) does not fix this bug. Logs look about the same as they did on 3.16.0 when I first reported.

[Joseph Salisbury (jsalisbury)]

This issue appears to be an upstream bug, since you tested the latest upstream kernel. Would it be possible for you to open an upstream bug report[0]? That will allow the upstream Developers to examine the issue, and may provide a quicker resolution to the bug.

Please follow the instructions on the wiki page[0]. The first step is to email the appropriate mailing list. If no response is received, then a bug may be opened on bugzilla.kernel.org.

Once this bug is reported upstream, please add the tag: 'kernel-bug-reported-upstream'.

[0] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Upstream/kernel

[Alex (alexsyna)]

I can confirm that I see the same behavior on my Dell Venue Pro 11 (Model 7130).

Every version of Ubuntu 14.04. (that I tried) boots into a black screen on the tablet
whereas the daily snapshot of 14.10. boots into a working screen, but doesn't have a
working touchscreen (no response to taps at all, but usable with an external keyboard).

I didn't get the chance to test touch input using the 14.04. versions of Ubuntu since I'm waiting
for an adapter to hook up the tablet to an external monitor.

I can also confirm that the August snapshot of Kubuntu Active has the screen and the touch
input working (single touch as far as I can see).

Best, Alex

[Alex (alexsyna)]

Don't know if that helps, but I just tried the i386 version of Ubuntu 14.10. (published on the 5th of September 2014).
And to my pleasant surprise video and touchscreen are working at the same time!

Cheers, Alex

[Steven Collins (stevencollins)]

Alex, can you confirm whether multitouch (as opposed to single touch) works with i386 Ubuntu 14.10? Thank you!

Also, I do plan to submit an upstream bug when I get a chance.

[Alex (alexsyna)]

Hi Steven,

I tried again and I can confirm that it is single touch out of the box with all current i386 Images I tried.
I have no idea how to achieve multi touch (very limited experience with Linux on touch-enabled devices).

On a side note I received the battery-equipped keyboard dock today and it's causing kernel panics
and completely stops working (keys and touchpad) when you push any keyboard key after booting.
As long as you don't push a button the touchpad is working.

Do you experience the same?

Cheers, Alex

[Steven Collins (stevencollins)]

Hi Alex,

Thanks for checking the multitouch. I don't have the keyboard dock. The only "interesting" accessory I have is the active pen/stylus, which frankly I haven't even bothered trying under Linux as I seriously doubt it would work.

I don't have a link in front of me, but when I was doing some Googling a few weeks ago I found a forum thread (in the Ubuntu forums, I think?) where a guy was posting his experiences with trying the 7130 and a wide variety of its accessories under various kernels. (If I/we can find that thread again, that's probably a better place for this sort of casual discussion than this here kernel bug, anyway.)

[Alex (alexsyna)]

You're probably thinking about this one: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2187204&page=8 (2nd to last post).
And you're absolutely right it's the best place for this kind of discussion.

Cheers, Alex

[lvlrdka22 (lvlrdka22)]

Is there any way to check if it's an upstream bug? There is a bug opened on kernel bugzilla, but no updates (other than my additional discoveries).
This bug appears to be distro dependent, e.g. doesn't happen on Arch.
I also tried asking around on the forum to try to further isolate the issue, but got no response.

The bug on kernel bugzilla: https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=91281