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  1. Bug #737051
  2. Comment #81

Comment 81 for bug 737051

Revision history for this message
Dave Turvene (dturvene) wrote : Re: [regression] Alps touchpad detected, but scrolling not working

I installed the psmouse with ALPS support from #57 and it works better but is still buggy. I still get occasional spurious refocus actions even when typing and xinput watch-props says "Synaptics Off" is set. I'm using 12.04 LTS on a Dell I15R.

Current issue:

* syndaemon must be running in the background. I messed around with the -i <val> times, while using xinput watch-props ID (the ALPS device id from xinput --list and it seems like it works. The higher the <val> times, the longer "Synaptics Off" property is disabled after typing. However, I still seem to get spurious pointer refocus actions even when the "Synaptics Off" is set.

* I tried to disable tap-to-click using xinput set-prop on various ALPS Tap properties. Another post said xinput set-prop 14 546 0 (set the prop id for "Synaptics Tap Time" to 0) will disable tap-to-click, but I saw no change.

* I can disable the ALPS touchpad by doing xinput set-prop 12 132 0 (On the psmouse device id, set prop id for "Device Enabled" to 0) but this has no effect on the ALPS device.

* I messed around with different values in /etc/modprobe.d/psmouse.conf for "options proto" but all were worse than the built driver.

* I put some printk debug in the driver but it just confirmed what I was seeing. Tap-to-click and the buttons generate the same codes to the driver. alps_tap_mode defaults to enable tap, but when I set it to disable tap, the tap is still enabled. I sent a request to ALPS with a specific request for the tap disable sequence, but (as expected) no response.

* I added known values to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-synaptics and verified they were set using xinput list-props 14, but that did not seem to affect anything.

* I do Fn-F3 while monitoring the ALPS device (14) and it shows a bunch of changes with no visible result (e.g. "Device Enabled" toggles but does not enable/disable the touchpad. I monitor the psmouse device and see no changes. This is consistent with disabling the touch pad using xinput set-prop on the psmouse device.

I'll continue to investigate because it bugs (no pun) me that I can't groom this to my liking. I suspect the control protocol to my version of the ALPS touchpad may be different than previous AND that 12.04 does not accurately recognize the ALPS touchpad.