Touchpad Tab missing because driver not recognised [SOLVED]

[josefg]

I have a laptop with touchpad, but inside the Mouse Preferences dialog of the Control Centre, I don't have any Touchpad tab... I have two other laptops, and they do show the tab properly. What could be wrong with my system configuration? The problem is on a Samsung RV711 laptop.

PS. I also have an external bluetooth-mouse attached to this laptop. Could this interfere in some way?

TIA

[xenopeek]

Does your touchpad work?

[ginjabunny]

I had problem with my touchpad when I first installed LMDE last week, it worked but I couldn't configure it as I like side scrolling on and tapping off, I installed "gpointing-device-settings" but it wasn't listed just a Logitech pointing device, so after hunting around for drivers but I realised I didn't know what make/model the touchpad was (this is a recent ASUS laptop), then I thought as far as I know the kernel had not been updated since LMDE was released late 2010, so I went into MintUpdate preferences and ticked to allow level 4 & 5 so newer kernel and X packages were installed (I thought why not because as it stood Mint11 was going back on if I couldn't fix it). Now Pointing Devices shows it as ETPS/2 Elantech touchpad and is totally configurable.

Hope this helps

[josefg]

Does your touchpad work?

Yes. Unfortunately it does so when I'm typing also and I often touch it accidentally, moving the cursor.

[xircon]

So........

Pointer moving works, what doesn't? (tap to click, vertical scrolling?). Have a look at synclient:

E.G.:

Code: Select all

synclient VertEdgeScroll=1

Turns on edge scrolling.

Cheers

Steve

[josefg]

@ ginjabunny
I installed gpointing-device-settings, and it seems to list my touchpad as a PS/2 Logitech Wheel Mouse just as it did for you.
I am using the kernel 2.6.39-2 amd64. Any hints on how to proceed?
I am using mintupdate-debian, where the level system has been removed.

@ xircon
The touchpad works. I can move the cursor, I can tap to click... Edge scrolling does not work, but this is not my main issue. I want to disable tap-to-click when I type, because I end up tapping unintentionally all the time. Normally, this can be done from the Mouse Preferences dialog, third tab. Except I do not have any third tab there.

[xircon]

Code: Select all

synclient TouchpadOff=1

To turn it off

Code: Select all

synclient TouchpadOff=0

To turn it back on.

Set them up in keyboard shortcuts (in Gnome, I use super+o for off or super+t for on) or run them from alt-f2. I personally prefer gmrun as it has history recall.

A work-a-round, but works for me.

Does/did edge scrolling work in Windows??

Cheers

Steve

[josefg]

Code: Select all

synclient TouchpadOff=1

To turn it off

I tried this, but get the message:

$ synclient TouchpadOff=1
Couldn't find synaptics properties. No synaptics driver loaded?

I suspect that it's indeed a problem of a missing driver.

Does/did edge scrolling work in Windows??

What system is that?

[xircon]

A horrible, bloated, useless system that nobody uses

What is in your /etc/X11/xorg.conf?

[josefg]

What is in your /etc/X11/xorg.conf?

Nothing. It's doesn't exist.

[xircon]

Well thats me out of ideas My machine has an xorg.conf due to the ATI Radeon card and I put all the trackpad stuff in there. Will continue to Google and get back if I find anything.

[xircon]

Have you seen:
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php? ... ad#p378552

Looks like there is some good stuff in there.

[josefg]

That sounds like the exact same problem. (except my touchpad is physically a simpler design without leds and stuff, just pad and the two buttons).

[xircon]

This might help:
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php? ... 55#p364900

Only a couple of months old, instructions towards the bottom.

[josefg]

How can I find out the exact hardware model of my touchpad?

[xircon]

Does lsusb or lspci report anything useful?

[josefg]

lsusb (with no external USB devices attached) reads:

Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0020 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:0020 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 2232:1005
Bus 002 Device 005: ID 0a5c:219c Broadcom Corp.

lspci reads:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor DRAM Controller (rev 02)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor PCI Express x16 Root Port (rev 02)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset HECI Controller (rev 06)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset USB2 Enhanced Host Controller (rev 05)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset High Definition Audio (rev 05)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev 05)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port 4 (rev 05)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset USB2 Enhanced Host Controller (rev 05)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev a5)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 5 Series Chipset LPC Interface Controller (rev 05)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset 4 port SATA AHCI Controller (rev 05)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset SMBus Controller (rev 05)
00:1f.6 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset Thermal Subsystem (rev 05)
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation Device 0a7a (rev a2)
02:00.1 Audio device: nVidia Corporation High Definition Audio Controller (rev a1)
03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4313 802.11b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller (rev 01)
05:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 06)
3f:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor QuickPath Architecture Generic Non-core Registers (rev 02)
3f:00.1 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor QuickPath Architecture System Address Decoder (rev 02)
3f:02.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor QPI Link 0 (rev 02)
3f:02.1 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor QPI Physical 0 (rev 02)
3f:02.2 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor Reserved (rev 02)
3f:02.3 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor Reserved (rev 02)

It doesn't give me any clues.

[ginjabunny]

@josefg - you can revert to the old mintupdate (as I just did) if you put the /etc/apt/source/list back to how it was (before you swapped to mintupdate-debian) then do reload in synaptic (or sudo apt-get update) then install mintupdate and it removes mintupdate-debian, reboot, you should be able to change the mintupdate prefernces to allow it to install level 4 & 5 updates.

BTW I couldn't find out what my touchpad was either, but I presumed that was because the old kernel hadn't identified it as it knows nothing about that hardware.

Additional: even though it is now listed as an Elantech in gpointing-device-settings it still doesn't show up in lsusb, lspci or lshw, so I don't know how you identify what actual make/model it is until the kernel if updated to correctly detect it. Would be nice to know, if I find out I'll share the info.

[josefg]

Have now installed Update Pack 3, with the new 3.0 kernel. But I still can't get the touchpad driver to work. My laptop is a Samsung NP-RV711. I still haven't figured out how to install or activate the appropriate driver, as I still don't really know which hardware chip is used in the machine.

[josefg]

Looking at the windows driver on samsung's support site, it seems like the touchpad is synaptics. But it still isn't identified as a touchpad by LMDE (only as a mouse), and therefore I still can't stop the tap-feature from translating into mouse clicks when i am typing on the keyboard and touch it accidentally.