<SOLVED> Synaptics TouchPad with Ubuntu/Mint

[vkrmsv]

Hello,

I recently got a dell Inspiron 3551 with Ubuntu 14.04 LTS pre-installed. At the moment, I have Mint 17.1 as well as the default installation. The touchpad works (i.e. I am able to move the cursor, left/right click, two finger scrolling) on Ubuntu, but not when I boot in to Mint.

I tried following https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingTouchpadDetection . When I attach a USB mouse it works fine. So, as suggested, I tried

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cat /proc/bus/input/devices

and see the following in the output (along with other input devices):

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I: Bus=0011 Vendor=0002 Product=0007 Version=01a1
N: Name="SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad"
P: Phys=isa0060/serio1/input0
S: Sysfs=/devices/platform/i8042/serio1/input/input7
U: Uniq=
H: Handlers=mouse0 event6 
B: PROP=5
B: EV=b
B: KEY=e520 610000 0 0 0 0
B: ABS=660800011000003

Some more information that might help:

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 $ xinput --list
⎡ Virtual core pointer                    	id=2	[master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer              	id=4	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ DLL06AB:00 06CB:78F1                    	id=11	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad              	id=13	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ HID 062a:0000                           	id=15	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                   	id=3	[master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard             	id=5	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                            	id=6	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Video Bus                               	id=7	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                            	id=8	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Sleep Button                            	id=9	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Integrated_Webcam_HD                    	id=10	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard            	id=12	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Dell WMI hotkeys                        	id=14	[slave  keyboard (3)]

Kernel information

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$ uname -a
Linux Inspiron-3551 3.19.0-21-generic #21~14.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Sun Jun 14 18:45:42 UTC 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

The same commands executed on the default Ubuntu installation produces the following output:

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$ xinput --list
⎡ Virtual core pointer                    	id=2	[master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer              	id=4	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad              	id=12	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                   	id=3	[master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard             	id=5	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                            	id=6	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Video Bus                               	id=7	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                            	id=8	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Sleep Button                            	id=9	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Integrated_Webcam_HD                    	id=10	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard            	id=11	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Dell WMI hotkeys                        	id=13	[slave  keyboard (3)]

$ uname -a
Linux kalyani-Inspiron-3551 3.13.0-38-generic #65somerville1-Ubuntu SMP Wed Oct 15 02:15:02 UTC 2014 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

I checked to see if the "synaptics input" drivers is the latest on Mint:

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 $ sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-input-synaptics
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
xserver-xorg-input-synaptics is already the newest version.

I have also tried the following commands (as suggested on this thread http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2206418)

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xinput float "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad"
xinput reattach "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad" "Virtual core pointer"
sudo modprobe -rv psmouse
sudo modprobe -v psmouse

I'm not sure how to go about debugging this. I would really appreciate it if someone can help me figure out what might be leading to the touchpad not working, and how I should go about fixing it. Do let me know if I need to provide any other information that would help.

Update:
Here is the output of `inxi -Fxz`

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System:    Host: Inspiron-3551 Kernel: 3.19.0-21-generic x86_64 (64 bit, gcc: 4.8.2) 
           Desktop: Gnome Distro: Linux Mint 17.1 Rebecca
Machine:   Mobo: Dell model: 0CMF7W version: A00 Bios: Dell version: A00 date: 12/05/2014
CPU:       Quad core Intel Pentium CPU N3540 (-MCP-) cache: 1024 KB flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx) bmips: 17305.6 
           Clock Speeds: 1: 605.070 MHz 2: 936.962 MHz 3: 499.741 MHz 4: 499.741 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Intel ValleyView Gen7 bus-ID: 00:02.0 
           X.Org: 1.15.1 drivers: intel (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) Resolution: 1366x768@60.0hz 
           GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Bay Trail GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 10.1.3 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio:     Card: Intel ValleyView High Definition Audio Controller driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1b.0
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture ver: k3.19.0-21-generic
Network:   Card-1: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9565 / AR9565 Wireless Network Adapter driver: ath9k bus-ID: 03:00.0
           IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter>
           Card-2: Atheros usb-ID: 0cf3:e005
           IF: N/A state: N/A speed: N/A duplex: N/A mac: N/A
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 500.1GB (1.3% used) 1: id: /dev/sda model: ST500LT012 size: 500.1GB 
Partition: ID: / size: 401G used: 6.0G (2%) fs: ext4 ID: swap-1 size: 8.34GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap 
RAID:      No RAID devices detected - /proc/mdstat and md_mod kernel raid module present
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 47.0C mobo: 0.0C 
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: 0 
Info:      Processes: 237 Uptime: 10:20 Memory: 906.5/3835.6MB Runlevel: 2 Gcc sys: 4.8.4 Client: Shell inxi: 1.8.4 

[phd21]

Hi vkrmsv,

There are some good posts regarding touchpads in this forum some from within the past couple days. There are numerous touchpad setup and configuration options explained in these posts even though the main subject may be different than yours.

Use graphics tablet only in monitor 2
http://forum.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=198993

Search this forum for "touchpad".

Hope this helps ...

FYI: It would help everyone here to have more information about your system's setup: like what edition and version of Linux Mint are you using: Cinnamon, or Mate, or KDE (my fav), or Xfce; version 17 or 17.1, or What?; 32-bit or 64-bit? Some more information about your hardware would be useful as well. You can get this information from top of your system menu's Welcome screen, System Information program(s), and the best is by typing in "inxi -Fxz" from a console terminal prompt, which you can then copy and paste back here. This information helps anyone here in this forum to be able to answer any questions you may have better , thanks. You can even add this information (abbreviated) to your signature using the control panel link in the above left of this forum screen; then when you post a question or reply to one, that info will automatically be there, ex: see mine and others below their posts.

[vkrmsv]

Hello phd21,

Thanks a lot for the reply! I updated the post with more system information. I had checked the other threads before posting; did not find anything relevant and hence this post. Please do let me know if I missed something. Just to be clear, I am trying to figure out how to compare two different linux installations (and install required packages on the other so that they have similar functionality).

Thanks again for the help!

[kenjitamura]

Would like to bump this as I have the same laptop and I've been trying to get the touchpad working with Linux Mint Mate 17.2 Rafaela to no avail. This has been driving me nuts for the last few hours and everything I've tried has been for naught.

I'd like to add that when I went to install with a live USB the touchpad didn't work in regular boot either but it DID work when I booted through "Compatibility Mode".

[xenopeek]

it DID work when I booted through "Compatibility Mode".

So have you tried using those boot parameters on your installed Linux Mint also? You can try them all at once first, and then start excluding them one by one to narrow down on which ones help and from that perhaps take it forward to a permanent solution (i.e., which feature of the hardware is causing problems with the drivers). Probably the relevant boot parameters that compatibility mode sets: noapic noapci irqpoll. It also sets xforcevesa nomodeset b32.blacklist=yes but those are related to graphics and wifi. Add boot parameters from GRUB (if you only have Linux Mint installed, hold down left shift during boot to show GRUB).

[kenjitamura]

it DID work when I booted through "Compatibility Mode".

So have you tried using those boot parameters on your installed Linux Mint also? You can try them all at once first, and then start excluding them one by one to narrow down on which ones help and from that perhaps take it forward to a permanent solution (i.e., which feature of the hardware is causing problems with the drivers). Probably the relevant boot parameters that compatibility mode sets: noapic noapci irqpoll. It also sets xforcevesa nomodeset b32.blacklist=yes but those are related to graphics and wifi. Add boot parameters from GRUB (if you only have Linux Mint installed, hold down left shift during boot to show GRUB).

I did this and it turns out that the "noapic" option is the one needed for the touchpad to work. Would keeping this boot option in my config cause any problems and if so what needs to be done for the touchpad to keep working without "noapic" in boot options?

[vkrmsv]

I did this and it turns out that the "noapic" option is the one needed for the touchpad to work. Would keeping this boot option in my config cause any problems and if so what needs to be done for the touchpad to keep working without "noapic" in boot options?

Thanks a lot for narrowing down this option! I can confirm that passing noapic in boot options does make the touchpad work.

I could not find anything concrete on what exactly the tradeoffs of passing noapic are (except for this old thread from 2007: https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/4506).

[Buzzsaw]

I did this and it turns out that the "noapic" option is the one needed for the touchpad to work. Would keeping this boot option in my config cause any problems and if so what needs to be done for the touchpad to keep working without "noapic" in boot options?

It's unlikely to cause a problem.

A BIOS/UEFI update might make 'noapic' unnecessary, and possibly future kernels might aswell. You'll need to test these in the future.