My Debian install is ignoring synaptics.conf
 

Hello there!

I am having a bit of an issue here with my touchpad: I want it to have tap to click and double finger scrolling, which is disabled by default. I am using xfce4, so no graphical configuration tool for my touchpad.

I have been using for years the configuration file /etc/X11/xorg.conf/xx-synaptics.conf and that worked fine, even in testing (now I am using jeesie), but now I could write in there all the options I want or the list of my third grade birthday parties, that it would have the same effect (loads of nothing).

What other options do I have to configure my touchpad? Is in there any program to configure my touchpad?

Thank you in advance.

I put a copy of my 50-synaptics.conf, but I have been changing it all afternoon and I didn't get it to work

# Example xorg.conf.d snippet that assigns the touchpad driver
# to all touchpads. See xorg.conf.d(5) for more information on
# InputClass.
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE, your distribution will likely overwrite
# it when updating. Copy (and rename) this file into
# /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d first.
# Additional options may be added in the form of
# Option "OptionName" "value"
#
Section "InputClass"
Identifier "touchpad catchall"
Driver "synaptics"
MatchIsTouchpad "on"
Option "VertTwoFingerScroll" "1" # multitouch
Option "HorizTwoFingerScroll" "1" # multitouch
# This option is recommend on all Linux systems using evdev, but cannot be
# enabled by default. See the following link for details:
# http://who-t.blogspot.com/2010/11/ho...on-errors.html
# MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
EndSection

Section "InputClass"
Identifier "touchpad ignore duplicates"
MatchIsTouchpad "on"
MatchOS "Linux"
MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/mouse*"
Option "Ignore" "on"
EndSection

# This option enables the bottom right corner to be a right button on clickpads
# and the right and middle top areas to be right / middle buttons on clickpads
# with a top button area.
# This option is only interpreted by clickpads.
Section "InputClass"
Identifier "Default clickpad buttons"
MatchDriver "synaptics"
Option "SoftButtonAreas" "50% 0 82% 0 0 0 0 0"
Option "SecondarySoftButtonAreas" "58% 0 0 15% 42% 58% 0 15%"
EndSection

# This option disables software buttons on Apple touchpads.
# This option is only interpreted by clickpads.
Section "InputClass"
Identifier "Disable clickpad buttons on Apple touchpads"
MatchProduct "Apple|bcm5974"
MatchDriver "synaptics"
Option "SoftButtonAreas" "0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0"
EndSection

I've got the same issue. My Sid partition from a couple years ago still works fine, but my new "just for Dwarf Fortress and games" Sid refuses to look at the synaptics file. As a work around, I have it run the following in my window manager startup file:
I put all of my startup code in that file, but I think .xinitrc might be another place to do it. synclient should be able to set almost everything, if you look up the right setting in the man page.

I'll warn you that it caused random crashes for me until an update about a week ago. Hopefully that bug isn't in Jessie.

Thank you for the reply! Sadly Id doesen't work:

$ synclient VertEdgeScroll=1 && synclient TapButton1=1
Couldn't find synaptics properties. No synaptics driver loaded?


The Debian wiki warns that this error comes from Debian using xserver-xorg-input-libinput instead of synaptics by default; but again, because It refuses to read the synaptics.conf file I can't force it to change drivers. It mentions a tool called gsettings to enable the touchpad, but gsettings doesn't seem to have any option to change the touchpad behaviour.

I though about removing xserver-xorg-input-libinput, but it is not installed. I did a search for libinput and I got this:

$ aptitude search libinput
p libinput-dev
p libinput-pad-dev
p libinput-pad-xtest
p libinput-pad1
p libinput5
p libinput5-dbg

So none of those are installed! Where my libinput comes from?

$ aptitude search xserver-xorg-input-synaptics
i A xserver-xorg-input-synaptics - Synaptics TouchPad driver for X.Org server

$ sudo aptitude install xserver-xorg-input-libinput
Couldn't find any package whose name or description matched "xserver-xorg-input-libinput"

this is quite a puzzle :/

Edit: read the next post, probably more helpful. /Edit

When I do dpkg -S /usr/bin/synclient I get:
xserver-xorg-input-synaptics
So that's the package you want.

Some googling reveals that mouse modules are usually handled internally by X11, which I didn't know. The output of these commands might be useful to see what it's trying to load:
xinput --list
cat /proc/bus/input/devices

For example, I get:
Maybe your specific touchpad has a driver issue. Or it could just be broken in Jessie, I noticed a lot of the mouse packages switching around and updating not long ago.

Oops! I posted that from the partition where synaptics.conf DOES work. On the one where it doesn't work, I have no xinput installed, and I DO have libinput installed:
I also have xserver-xorg-input-synaptics installed. So, maybe if you install those libinput packages synclient will start working. I have no idea why the first OS I posted from didn't get the memo, it's fully upgraded as well.

I actually noticed I don't seem to have libinput avalable: as I added on my first reply "aptitude search libinput" doesn't show any proper "libinput" package, while "xserver-xorg-input-libinput" returns a simple "Couldn't find any package whose name or description matched "xserver-xorg-input-libinput" For sure my system only has synaptics, whichs adds a layer of difficulty: Why it is not working?

I actually tried to add gibberish to 50-synaptics.conf and managed to make the X server to crash when trying to start: That means it reads the config file! (I also added another one to make sure ctrl+alt+bckspace ends the server and also works: 40-xorg.conf.) However, any "Option" I add to change the behaviour of the touchpad keeps being ignored: May this be a bug?

Ah, yep, you're right, no libinput in Jessie. I guess my next guess would be trying to copy the setup I had in the previous post (#4). Do you have xinput installed?

Also, it's probably not helpful, but here's my synaptics.conf

Actually, it sort of helps! I decided to cleanup my synaptics.conf, removed that and just added your bit with the extra Options for two fingers scroll and vertical scrolling. Now I have tap to click, but the damn scrolling still refuses to work! the manpage doesn't seem to help much, as it only says you need to pass a boolean value, so instead of "0" and "1" I also tried with "true" and "false", but no luck.