Impossible to change synaptics touchpad settings

[joehill]

Binary package hint: xserver-xorg

On upgrading to Intrepid, I can't find any way to change synaptics touchpad settings. I think it's crucial to make it easy for people to adjust these settings, as many people use laptops and a badly adjusted touchpad makes for a terrible computing experience.

When I initially tried to change the settings using a synclient bash script I had been using in Hardy, I got the error message that SHMConfig needed to be set to "true" in xorg.conf. I got the same error message when I tried to use the "Touchpad" dialog under the Preferences menu. I created a /etc/hal/fdi/policy/shmconfig.fdi file as was suggested in one how-to, although this didn't seem to have any effect. Then I edited xorg.conf and the error messages went away, but the Touchpad dialog and synclient still have no effect. The only way I can find to influence the touchpad speed is using the Mouse dialog, whose maximum speed is painfully slow (and which only configures a couple variables).

I read some how-tos saying that this system had changed fundamentally with Intrepid and that other programs were now preferred to synclient, but all the solutions seem pretty arcane and don't seem to allow you to control many variables. Is there any plan to make a functional gui for this? Or at least to make it so that it doesn't take hours of research to get basic touchpad settings to work acceptably?
[lspci]
00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory Controller Hub [8086:2a00] (rev 0c)
     Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:01fe]
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:2a02] (rev 0c)
     Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:01fe]

[Elias K Gardner (zorkerz)]

Hi there.Thanks for reporting your bug. Your right x has been changed alot. I don't fully understand and cant be too helpful. I was just reading the release notes page, however, and read this paragraph.

"X.Org Input Devices
The X.Org configuration file (/etc/X11/xorg.conf) still has InputDevice entries for the mouse and keyboard, but they are ignored now because input-hotplug is used. The keyboard settings now come from /etc/default/console-setup; to change them please use sudo dpkg-reconfigure console-setup. After that, HAL and X need to be restarted (e.g., by rebooting your system)."

They do say the console-setup file is for keyboard settings but the sentence before makes me wonder if mouse settings might go there to.

Can't help beyond that im afraid. good luck.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Hi joseph-hill,

Please attach the output of `lspci -vvnn`, and attach your /var/log/Xorg.0.log file from after reproducing this issue. If you've made any customizations to your /etc/X11/xorg.conf please attach that as well.

[joehill (joseph-hill)]

Thanks for looking into this. I guess the touchpad on here is Alps, not synaptics.

[Alan (mrintegrity)]

Working with an eeepc 901 here. vllery frustrating! I am fairly sure that console-setup has nothing to do with touchpads

[captaintrav (captaintrav)]

I understand it is frustrating not having an easy to use interface to get proper touchpad performance. I've reverted to Hardy from Intrepid due to other issues, but I didn't have touchpad issues with my xorg.conf.

Try something like this in /etc/X11/xorg.conf:

Section "InputDevice"
 Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad"
 Driver "synaptics"
 Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"
 Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
 Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
 Option "HorizEdgeScroll" "0"
 Option "LeftEdge" "130"
 Option "RightEdge" "840"
 Option "TopEdge" "130"
 Option "BottomEdge" "640"
 Option "FingerLow" "7"
 Option "FingerHigh" "8"
 Option "MaxTapTime" "180"
 Option "MinTapTime" "110"
 Option "ClickTime" "0"
 Option "EmulateMidButtonTime" "75"
 Option "VertScrollDelta" "20"
 Option "HorizScrollDelta" "20"
 Option "MinSpeed" "0.50"
 Option "MaxSpeed" "0.85"
 Option "AccelFactor" "0.050"
 Option "EdgeMotionMinSpeed" "200"
 Option "EdgeMotionMaxSpeed" "200"
 Option "UpDownScrolling" "1"
 Option "CircularScrolling" "off"
 Option "CircScrollDelta" "0.1"
 Option "CircScrollTrigger" "3"
 Option "VertEdgeScroll" "on"
EndSection

If you're really bored, look at the man page for "synaptics" to see what all the settings do. Though my setup is for the synaptic driver, I'm using an ALPS touchpad on a Dell Latitude, the synaptics driver supports both.

[Alan (mrintegrity)]

I was under the impression that xorg.conf is mostly ignored now though.

2008/12/3 captaintrav <email address hidden>

> I understand it is frustrating not having an easy to use interface to
> get proper touchpad performance. I've reverted to Hardy from Intrepid
> due to other issues, but I didn't have touchpad issues with my
> xorg.conf.
>
> Try something like this in /etc/X11/xorg.conf:
>
> Section "InputDevice"
> Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad"
> Driver "synaptics"
> Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"
> Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
> Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
> Option "HorizEdgeScroll" "0"
> Option "LeftEdge" "130"
> Option "RightEdge" "840"
> Option "TopEdge" "130"
> Option "BottomEdge" "640"
> Option "FingerLow" "7"
> Option "FingerHigh" "8"
> Option "MaxTapTime" "180"
> Option "MinTapTime" "110"
> Option "ClickTime" "0"
> Option "EmulateMidButtonTime" "75"
> Option "VertScrollDelta" "20"
> Option "HorizScrollDelta" "20"
> Option "MinSpeed" "0.50"
> Option "MaxSpeed" "0.85"
> Option "AccelFactor" "0.050"
> Option "EdgeMotionMinSpeed" "200"
> Option "EdgeMotionMaxSpeed" "200"
> Option "UpDownScrolling" "1"
> Option "CircularScrolling" "off"
> Option "CircScrollDelta" "0.1"
> Option "CircScrollTrigger" "3"
> Option "VertEdgeScroll" "on"
> EndSection
>
> If you're really bored, look at the man page for "synaptics" to see what
> all the settings do. Though my setup is for the synaptic driver, I'm
> using an ALPS touchpad on a Dell Latitude, the synaptics driver supports
> both.
>
> --
> Impossible to change synaptics touchpad settings
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/288332
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

[captaintrav (captaintrav)]

I can't speak to what is valid in xorg.conf, but I know I need to fix up xorg.conf to make the touchpad on my Latitude D600 usable in X. If you add/change xorg.conf as above, make sure you reference the touchpad in the ServerLayout section as well:

[joehill (joseph-hill)]

Thanks for the tips captaintrav. Let me clarify the problem. My problem when I upgraded to Intrepid was that all the xorg.conf fixes (and synclient equivalents) that I had been using for years (and that you list above) ceased to work. I edited xorg.conf to allow shared memory so I could set these things through synclient but that didn't have any effect (except to make the error message go away). (I for one do not like the idea of editing and restarting X every time I want to tweak the acceleration of my touchpad, which is why I prefer synclient over editing xorg.conf.)

Recently, I once again removed xorg.conf altogether and (perhaps due to some update in the interim?) synclient is now able to regulate the touchpad. It's still not without its hitches but at least the basic stuff is working again. The key for me was to delete xorg.conf and instead to edit /etc/hal/fdi/policy/shmconfig.fdi . This didn't initially work, but now it is working. Not sure what changed.

[Alan (mrintegrity)]

As far as I know, input device sections are now ignored in Intrepid.

2008/12/4 captaintrav <email address hidden>

> I can't speak to what is valid in xorg.conf, but I know I need to fix up
> xorg.conf to make the touchpad on my Latitude D600 usable in X. If you
> add/change xorg.conf as above, make sure you reference the touchpad in
> the ServerLayout section as well:
>
>
> ** Attachment added: "xorg.conf with touchpad configuration"
> http://launchpadlibrarian.net/20202499/xorg.conf
>
> --
> Impossible to change synaptics touchpad settings
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/288332
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

[joehill (joseph-hill)]

Sorry, I may not have actually had any touchpad settings directly in xorg.conf as you give in your example--I think I removed those from xorg.conf when I began using synclient, before I upgraded to Intrepid. So probably the only thing not working in xorg.conf was the shmconfig value.

Even though it seems to be working now, I still consider this an important bug that should be fixed. There is still no user friendly way to configure touchpads--one should not have to sudo a bunch of stuff and edit xorg.conf or shmconfig.fdi and then run a command line utility over and over again to get the settings right. Currently, my touchpad is almost useless if I limit myself to the configuration options available through the gui. I have written a synclient script that runs whenever I start Gnome and loads my preferred settings, and I have to rerun it from the desktop whenever I disable/enable network settings or suspend my computer (different bug).

Now that I've invested the time to hack my touchpad, I'm ok with it, but I'm sure millions of potential Ubuntu users would rather throw in the towel before spending hours trying to get their pointer to move across the screen at a sane speed.

[Stanislaw Pitucha (viraptor-gmail)]

I'm affected too.
I fixed it manually by uncommenting the InputDevice/synaptics section in xorg.conf, but the general problem still remains.

[Tomas Pospisek (tpo-deb)]

Is this bug still valid? In Karmic I am able to set some settings with gsynaptics and all of them with synclient.

See http://strabes.wordpress.com/2007/04/01/enable-horizontal-scrolling-on-synaptics-touchpads-in-ubuntu-linux/

Doing whatever in xorg.conf is a no-op.

Could you comment on whether things work now in Karmic?

[joehill (joseph-hill)]

I haven't had any problem in Karmic.

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

Thanks, closing the bug.