Touchpad not detected on Acer Aspire ES15 ES1-523-44LU

[Stephen Hunt]

On a fresh install of Ubuntu 16.04.02 the touch pad was never detected. However, external USB mouse works fine. Reporting this bug after following instructions at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingTouchpadDetection.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.04
Package: linux-image-4.8.0-39-generic 4.8.0-39.42~16.04.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.8.0-39.42~16.04.1-generic 4.8.17
Uname: Linux 4.8.0-39-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.5
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Sun Feb 26 13:13:51 2017
InstallationDate: Installed on 2017-02-26 (0 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS "Xenial Xerus" - Release amd64 (20170215.2)
SourcePackage: linux-hwe
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Stephen Hunt (stphnhnt)]

After looking around in my BIOS I found an option for either "advanced" or "basic" touch pad. If I'm on advanced, the touch pad does not work in Ubuntu, but it will if I'm in basic mode. I've install Ubuntu alongside Windows 10, and unfortunately basic mode removes all multi-touch capabilities for the touch pad in Windows (they are present in Ubuntu however). So I can only really use the touch pad in either Windows or Ubuntu, unless I change the BIOS's touch pad setting before booting to a different OS.

[Matt Damon (infraredlxix)]

So im using an Acer Aspire as well. I wanted to upgrade from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10. Long story short, it didnt happen and I was left with no bootable drives. Figured Id download Ubuntu 14 LTS. First time around, I couldn't use my touchpad. I tried playing around with BIOS as well as playing around with the settings from the Ubuntu LTS. But, I could not for the life of me figure out why it wasnt working. Post-installation of Ubuntu 14, my computer takes about 2 hours to boot, only for the terminal to show a ton of Red errors. I try again, only this time using UEFI. The touchpad works, only problem is that Ubuntu is a pain in the ass to install using UEFI when going from Windows 8, 8.1 or Windows 10 to Ubuntu theres a ton of extra steps you have to do. The problem that I think you're looking at is the same thing I went through, try booting your computer using UEFI and then if needed you can return to Legacy BIOS.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Vidar Braut Haarr (vhaarr+launchpad)]

I reported this bug first here:
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=103551

And then on IRC I was advised by Hutterer to report it on the kernel bugzilla, so I piggybacked on an existing bug:
https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=54951