Touchpad help.

[projectxmatt]

I have searched and searched and all i found was stuff for Fedora 9. But i have an HP DV4000 when in windows it uses an ALPS driver for the touchpad (not a synaptic). Currently im running the KDE version of 11 and can't figure out for the life of me how to get the scrolling with the touchpad to work, it worked in gnome(with no configuration on my part) but not even slightly in KDE, any help would be greatly appreciated.

[PatMcLJr]

search around in here, there is lots of stuff on laptops and touchpads

try leigh123's new google search

it's going to end up being some kind of xorg.conf edit so if you haven't done that yet you might want to add that to your searches.

Good Luck,
Pat Jr.

[bbfuller]

Hello projectxmatt

Like you, I have an Alps touchpad in my laptop. To get it to work I have to modify my /etc/xorg.conf file.

Please note that I haven't tried it on F11 yet, only F10 and F9.

If you don't have an xorg.conf file, it is possible to generate one with the Display program from the administration menu. It's not installed by default so:

yum install system-config-display

will get it for you.

Please also note that the top left of a touchpad is defined as zero. All distances are specified from there. My display is an old fashioned 4:3 ratio and I specified very narrow scroll areas. If your screen is one of the newer widescreen ratios or you require wider scroll areas some of the numbers may need changing.

I had to modify my xorg.conf file to include the following:

Some of the "Section "ServerLayout"" you will probably already have.

control pointer movement, and:

control tapping. This final section controls double tapping and by extension "tap to drag"

One or two notes from experience of sharing these instructions.

Do make a backup of the 'xorg.conf' file before you start altering it and make sure that you can restore it from the command line if necessary. One spelling mistake in this and you graphical environment won't start.

You should already have a section in that file headed "Section "ServerLayout"". Just the one line in red needs adding to that.

The section "Section "InputDevice"" will need to be created in its entirety. There will already be an "InputDevice" section to do with the keyboard. This part is completely in addition to that.

On a Synaptics touchpad machine you would just need to add the part highlighted red and green.

The numbers for Right and Bottom edges may be wrong for your pad. They are based on one of what we may call standard size pads, not a widescreen pad. Zero starts in the top left corner for all dimensions and you may need to adjust those to suit your circumstances.

The parts in blue are just explanations of what some of the configuration options do.

Post back if you want to talk about any of that.

[projectxmatt]

Originally Posted by bbfuller

Post back if you want to talk about any of that.

Thanks for the very informative post, ill have to try it out when im not drugged up (just got out of surgery lol)

[bbfuller]

Hello projectxmatt

(just got out of surgery lol)

There's a co-incidence, me too!

Just a minor repair job in my case.

Best wishes for a speedy recovery.

[projectxmatt]

thanks yeap just kidney stone removal. And it does work btw thanks so much