Dell Mini 10 Touchpad woes in LMDE

Archived topics about LMDE 1 and LMDE 2
Locked
idiotmagoo

Dell Mini 10 Touchpad woes in LMDE

Post by idiotmagoo »

Hi, I installed lmde on a Dell Inspiron mini10v and I'm wondering if anyone has gotten the touchpad to work perfectly on their machines. The touchpad on this machine has integrated buttons in the touchpad itself. When clicking and dragging the touchpad goes schizophrenic, making it nearly impossible to select text or scroll using the buttons.

Using the Arch wiki as a template, I set the synaptics settings to get it almost where it needs to be. It ignores the bottom quarter of the touchpad, but when one clicks a button it still registers it as a touch. Here's what I have in my xorg.conf.d settings file:

Code: Select all

Section "InputClass"
    Identifier "touchpad catchall"
    Driver "synaptics"
    MatchIsTouchpad "on"
        Option "TapButton1" "1"
        Option "TapButton2" "2"
        Option "TapButton3" "3"
        Option "JumpyCursorThreshold" "90"
        Option "AreaBottomEdge" "4100"
EndSection
It seems as though Ubuntu varients have a modified/hacked synaptics driver in their releases. I'm wondering if trying to install the hacked driver might be an alternate route.

Any guesses?
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
idiotmagoo

Re: Dell Mini 10v Touchpad woes in LMDE

Post by idiotmagoo »

So, I think I've found further info regarding this annoyance. It seems as though that on boot the kernel doesn't recognize the touchpad as an elantech touchpad and instead registers it as a generic p/s 2 mouse. I checked dmesg and this indeed seems to be the issue. I updated to the liquorix kernel thinking that maybe a newer kernel would see it as an elantech touchpad, but no dice.

still researching . . .
Dr.m0x

Re: Dell Mini 10 Touchpad woes in LMDE

Post by Dr.m0x »

Please allow me to offer you the fix for your problems.

As we are using the 2.6.32 kernel in LMDE you can simply follow these instructions.

The psmouse.ko patch works as perfectly with debian as with ubuntu. After applying it you will have full access to the touchpad options in the mouse settings.

I had to use the same patch to correctly detect the elantech touchpad in my Aspire D255 netbook.
idiotmagoo

Re: Dell Mini 10 Touchpad woes in LMDE

Post by idiotmagoo »

yeah, that was going to be the next thing I try when I get the time.

The issue is that I installed the liquorix kernel so I'm not sure if I can apply this patch to it. I'm thinking of trying to apply it to the old .32 kernel, then test it on the .38 liquorix kernel; or just go ahead and do a fresh install (perhaps, switching to the LMDE XFCE while I'm at it). When I have the time to do any of these I'll post my results.

Thanks for the reply!
Dr.m0x

Re: Dell Mini 10 Touchpad woes in LMDE

Post by Dr.m0x »

Interesting. The patch is only for older kernels. In theory elantech should be detected by 2.6.38. At least it was when I was playing with ubuntu natty beta 1 yesterday. Maybe liquorx is not compiled with the correct options.

Sent from my Android baby.
Rick_knight

Re: Dell Mini 10 Touchpad woes in LMDE

Post by Rick_knight »

I know this is an old post but as I was recently trying to find solutions to the Dell Mini 10 touchpad issues online and still saw easy solutions. Disabling the lower quarter of the touchpad did not seem to be the best approach to me. The touchpad trouble seems to be the favorite complaint about the machine and I had, like many, opted for a mouse. A hint came from somewhere about trying to use tape without success and inspired my I solution that has worked independent of operating systems (windows and Ubuntu) and device drivers for a week now. The issue had seemed to be that the left and right touchpad "buttons" are also sensing the light finger touch for those of us that would use two fingers to run the touchpad. While using the right finger on the pad's scrolling/pointing area the lightest touch to the left button area could send the mouse pointer flying.

Small stick-on rubber buttons, like those for putting bumper pads on cabinet doors or non-slip feet on tabletop objects can be placed on the extreme lower left and right of the touchpad. Even a firm touch to the pad's new button will not register the finger touch while letting a pad click happen when you actually depress the button and feel and hear the "click". The new left "bumper button" can be used for a resting area with no flying pointer issue. I've used the smallest of a mixed size variety package that is about 9 or 10mm in diameter and maybe around 4mm thick with a well rounded top surface. Between the two bumper buttons on the pad you still have left to right scrolling. I have also disabled the double tap feature but feel free to experiment.

Hope this can help.
Locked

Return to “LMDE Archive”