Synaptics touchpad - how do I get it to work?

[Paul Nasrat]

On Tue, Feb 17, 2004 at 09:36:36PM -0800, Aleksey Nogin wrote:
> There are a number of entries in Bugzilla that deal with various aspects 
> of getting the Synaptics touchpad to work properly:
> 
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/buglist.cgi?bug_id=99351,99509,103497,112473,114911,115572,116091
> 
> [Bug 99351] Add support for event layer synaptics driver

This is the bug I'm most familiar with :)

> [Bug 116091] Synaptics touchpad need to be supported.

kudzu now supports synaptics via evdev:

python
>>> import kudzu
>>> kudzu.probe(kudzu.CLASS_MOUSE,kudzu.BUS_UNSPEC,kudzu.PROBE_ALL)
[Desc:           SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad
Driver:         synaptics
Device:         input/mouse0 event0
, Desc:           PS/2 Generic Mouse
Driver:         ignore
Device:         input/mouse1 event1
, Desc:           AT Translated Set 2 keyboard
Driver:         ignore
Device:         input/kbd event2
]
 
> With so many bugs discussing various approaches to getting it to work, 
> it is hard to figure out the best way to get it working. Provided I am 
> using a recent FC Devel version and would like to get it fully working 
> (e.g. tap for left-click, double-tap for middle click, etc), what should 
> I do? Thanks a lot for any suggestions.

Well if you are really keen you can install binary synaptics rpm from
http://pauln.truemesh.com/rpms/synaptics/

Ensure evdev is loaded on boot (I use /etc/rc.modules for this)

Change XFree86 config:

I have
                                                                                
Section "ServerLayout"
        Identifier     "Default Layout"
        Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
        InputDevice    "MouseS" "CorePointer"
        InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
        InputDevice    "DevInputMice" "AlwaysCore"
EndSection

...
                                                                                
Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier "MouseS"
        Driver      "synaptics"
        Option      "Protocol" "auto-dev"
        Option      "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
        Option      "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
EndSection

See README for more synaptic specific Options, the XFree86 rpms are provided to verify SDK patches working so can build from src.rpm.  If you want to test build you can install the XFree86-sdk provided.  Obviously if this gets in then the manual steps will be automagic.

Tap, horizontal and vertical scroll and friends should all work.

As far as the gpm patches go I did look at them and they include extensive refactoring from upstream.  I would imagine this is a case of if anyone cares about it they need to try and push upstream.

Paul