Touchpad issue on dell 5420

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nandayo
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Touchpad issue on dell 5420

Post by nandayo »

Hello,

I just got my Dell 5420, and I'm trying to test Linux Mint on it, as have been working on LM for 10 years at least, don't want to change !

However, I'm facing issues with its touchpad : the scrolling do not work (neither two fingers nor edge scrolling), and of course I enabled it in the touchpad options... Under Ubuntu (pre-installed), it's working fine. I'm embarrassed because this REALLY is a must have option for me, no way I can scroll with the classical click on the lateral bar...

This is the first time I have this kind of issue, all my previous dell laptop worked out of the box, so I don't really know what to do...

I tried to find out the touchpad model with "grep -Ei 'synap|alps|etps' /proc/bus/input/device", but nothing shows up...

Any ideas ?

Thanks !
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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maxwellinho
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Re: Touchpad issue on dell 5420

Post by maxwellinho »

Hello,

I had exactly the same problem on the same laptop.

I managed to scroll with touchpad with 2 fingers by installing the 5.11.0-25 kernel.

Hope this will help !
nandayo
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Re: Touchpad issue on dell 5420

Post by nandayo »

Hi,

Thanks a lot for your help. As LM is not ye installed on my laptop (original Ubuntu only, I'm testing LM 20.2 on a live usb) I cannot try what happens when updating the kernel. I hope you're right. Maybe I could find an actual "daily" release up to date (with the last kernel), that would help me to try on a live usb key if this solves the issue, do you think this is possible ?...

As you have the same laptop and run it on LM, can you tell me if everything else is 100% fine under LM ? I'm wondering if this would be interesting to give a shot to the Ubuntu release installed right now (I had been using Ubuntu a long time ago, with after Unity came out, I changed for Linux Mint, and have been using it for more many years...)

Thanks again.
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JoeFootball
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Re: Touchpad issue on dell 5420

Post by JoeFootball »

nandayo wrote: Maybe I could find an actual "daily" release up to date (with the last kernel), that would help me to try on a live usb key if this solves the issue, do you think this is possible ?
How about, installing it on the laptop, then install any available drivers, apply all updates, and see if it works. If not, then install the 5.11.x kernel, and see if that works.
nandayo
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Re: Touchpad issue on dell 5420

Post by nandayo »

The problem is that I have a working pre-installed dell Ubuntu, and i whittle like to be sure about LM before ereasing it to install LM...

Testing an up to date ''daily'' Linux mint on live USB would be a perfect option first... But i didn't find a way to du that.
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JoeFootball
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Re: Touchpad issue on dell 5420

Post by JoeFootball »

nandayo wrote: ... before ereasing it to install LM...
There's no reason you'd need to erase Ubuntu to install LM (unless you have minimal disc space). You can just install LM alongside Ubuntu, the installer should have that option. Or you can manually re-partition your hard drive prior to installation.
nandayo
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Re: Touchpad issue on dell 5420

Post by nandayo »

I know that, but then, after testing, i’ll have to erase the unused OS ( no point in keeping it and i need to install windows also), redo partitions, and so on, that's a mess in comparison to test first with live USB.

Now, if I have no choice, I will do that, but damn, would su much easier with live test of LM :?
maxwellinho
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Re: Touchpad issue on dell 5420

Post by maxwellinho »

I left ubuntu for the same reason ;)

Honestly, 5420 is pretty new, I have problems on LM and Ubuntu with nic driver and the last BIOS 1.10 provided by Dell.
But if you have a full working preinstalled ubuntu on that computer, you might have a good firmware/driver couple.

If you don't want to resize partitions I suggest that you backup the existing system with timeshift or take a full image of your disk on a external USB drive with Clonezilla USB, or both.
After that, you can try the last Mint and tell us how it works.

What is the preinstalled version of ubuntu ? And which version of BIOS do you have on that 5420 ?
nandayo
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Re: Touchpad issue on dell 5420

Post by nandayo »

Hi,

Late response, but everything is fine now : I kept Ubuntu just in case, installed W10, and finally installed LM 20 ; after updating it, as planed the touchpad works perfectly, what a relief !

I didn't looked at the Ubuntu version, but the animal on the backgound is a kind a polygonal panthera, that can allow you to get your response. Don't know neither which BIOS version it is, but as far as I know, it was up to date when I got the laptop (july).

LM works really great on this laptop, and the autonomy is crazy (8 hours ? something like that ?? never tried to empty it but looks huge) compared to my old Latitude 6410 (3 hours max whith brand new battery, 1h30 after one year of use...)
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