Dell Inspiron 1420 AlpsPS/2 ALPS Glidepoint - Poor Default Settings

[Harvey Muller]

Binary package hint: xserver-xorg-input-synaptics

This report is specific to Intrepid Beta amd64 desktop.

Personal history of touchpad usage in Ubuntu (or any other distribution):

The default settings of the touchpad have never been satisfactory. The biggest problem has been random cursor movement while typing. Additionally the tap, speed, and other settings were never satisfactory "out of the box."

To solve this, I have resorted to using two methods. One, to create a custom entry in xorg.conf for reasonable settings, when an external mouse is not available. This is not preferable, because there is still unwanted cursor movement. Two, to use an external mouse with custom udev rule to turn touchpad off when the external mouse is attached.

Intrepid and forward:

The default methodology (probably beginning with Hardy) has been to let X detect and configure the touchpad.

Currently, this touchpad does not trigger the Touchpad tab in Gnome Mouse Properties (see Bug #267611). Although once that bug is fixed, some configuration options may be available to the user, it is desired that the touchpad be configured better for the Dell Inspiron 1420 automatically.

In this spirit, the following attachment as described in https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingTouchpadDetection are included in this report.

Any further questions will be promptly answered.

Thanks,

Harvey
[lspci]
00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory Controller Hub [8086:2a00] (rev 0c)
     Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:01f3]
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: nVidia Corporation GeForce 8400M GS [10de:0427] (rev a1)
     Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:01f3]

[Harvey Muller (hlmuller)]

This is the customized xorg.conf I used in Hardy. Although it improved the performance (speed, tap) of the touchpad dramatically, it still did not completely eliminate random cursor movement.

[Harvey Muller (hlmuller)]

This is the udev rule I created to turn off the touchpad when an external (bluetooth in this case) mouse is attached. It is not perfect, as sometimes when I lose the external mouse, I have to manually turn the touchpad back on using the terminal. But it works great at turning the touchpad off.

[Mario Limonciello (superm1)]

Removing the dell project. These laptops will not be shipping with 8.04, 8.10 or anything going forward so they are not interesting to the project.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Hi Harvey, is this bug still affecting you?

If it is, current versions of Ubuntu have an ability to ship xorg.conf "snippets". So a way we could solve this would be to create an xorg.conf.d snippet for your specific hardware, and a udev rule to enable it. If you'd like to try this approach, could you identify the exact xorg.conf (or xinput property) settings you think should be shipped with this hardware?

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for xserver-xorg-input-synaptics (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[Timothy R. Chavez (timrchavez)]

The bug task for the somerville project has been removed by an automated script. This bug has been cloned on that project and is available here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1305853