ALPS touchpad driver doesn't work

[Jon Thackray]

First, the collected kernel version is wrong. I'm running 4.4.0-36-generic, but inside ubuntu 14.04. Anyway, the touchpad refuses to act as a pointer mover. It will, if I let it, do tap to click (which is the last thing I want). But, as things stand, I'm forced to use the little button in the middle of the keyboard. Supposedly the 3.19 kernel was going to install a proper driver for the ALPS touchpad, and whilst at least I'm not now stuck with the generic driver and unable to turn off tap to click, I no longer have pointer movement.

In the relevant bit of /proc I can see
N: Name="AlpsPS/2 ALPS DualPoint TouchPad"

xinput shows this

jon@harada:~$ xinput
⎡ Virtual core pointer id=2 [master pointer (3)]
⎜ ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer id=4 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ AlpsPS/2 ALPS DualPoint Stick id=11 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ AlpsPS/2 ALPS DualPoint TouchPad id=12 [slave pointer (2)]

so I assume there is a real driver at work.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04
Package: linux-generic 3.13.0.95.103
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.4.0-36.55~14.04.1-generic 4.4.16
Uname: Linux 4.4.0-36-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.14.1-0ubuntu3.21
Architecture: amd64
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: jon 2099 F.... pulseaudio
 /dev/snd/controlC1: jon 2099 F.... pulseaudio
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Sat Sep 10 14:24:35 2016
HibernationDevice: RESUME=UUID=9d74fe15-1696-413a-9428-cf9b52730f3e
InstallationDate: Installed on 2014-09-12 (728 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Release amd64 (20140417)
MachineType: TOSHIBA TECRA Z50-A
ProcFB: 0 inteldrmfb
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-4.4.0-36-generic root=UUID=08d487a3-23ef-4d2a-916e-cafb168982ac ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
RelatedPackageVersions:
 linux-restricted-modules-4.4.0-36-generic N/A
 linux-backports-modules-4.4.0-36-generic N/A
 linux-firmware 1.127.22
SourcePackage: linux
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
dmi.bios.date: 12/26/2013
dmi.bios.vendor: TOSHIBA
dmi.bios.version: Version 3.20
dmi.board.asset.tag: 0000000000
dmi.board.name: TECRA Z50-A
dmi.board.vendor: TOSHIBA
dmi.board.version: Version A0
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: 0000000000
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: TOSHIBA
dmi.chassis.version: Version 1.0
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnTOSHIBA:bvrVersion3.20:bd12/26/2013:svnTOSHIBA:pnTECRAZ50-A:pvrPT545E-00G00VEN:rvnTOSHIBA:rnTECRAZ50-A:rvrVersionA0:cvnTOSHIBA:ct10:cvrVersion1.0:
dmi.product.name: TECRA Z50-A
dmi.product.version: PT545E-00G00VEN
dmi.sys.vendor: TOSHIBA

[Brad Figg (brad-figg)]

This change was made by a bot.

[Joseph Salisbury (jsalisbury)]

Did this issue start happening after an update/upgrade? Was there a prior kernel version where you were not having this particular problem?

Would it be possible for you to test the latest upstream kernel? Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds . Please test the latest v4.8 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'.

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/v4.8-rc6

[Jon Thackray (jgt)]

In the standard 3.13 kernels for 14.04 the touchpad wasn't supported at all.
Therefore it worked, but it was impossible to turn off its most irritating
feature which was tap to click. Most implementations at least give the
option to disable this when typing, but the default generic implementation
didn't even have that, rendering the touchpad worse than useless as it was
impossible to avoid touching it whilst typing, resulting for example in the
point of input in emails and editors getting randomly moved to wherever the
pointer happened to be. I found some info claiming that this was fixed in
3.19 where there was a real ALPS touchpad driver. However, the effect of the
fix was simply to disable the touchpad completely, at least for my laptop. I
discovered that it was still possible to enable tap to click should I happen
to want that, so clearly the driver was doing something. However, it did not
contain any support for moving the pointer that I could find. Then the 3.19
kernel (vivid) got replaced during an upgrade to the xenial series 4 kernel
as below. Unfortunately this didn't work any better, which is why I raised
the bug against 4.4.

I'll give the 4.8 kernel a go, but it will be a few days before the require
round tuits arrive.

[Jon Thackray (jgt)]

I've now tried the 4.8 kernel as suggested. It booted into busybox at initramfs, so I was unable to determine anything useful about it. I also tried the latest 4.9 kernel. That booted, but produced continuous beeps from the loudspeaker and neither the keyboard nor the point worked.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for linux (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]