Stick with it, your getting there. The cf-18 setup is definitely not going to work for you, the way the input comes in is completely different. On the cf-18 the signal is (IMHO < i.e not a fact) split into 2 channels in hardware, on the 28 and 29 it comes through the same hardware as 2 different types of signal.
I'm still almost certain the super slow pad operation is being caused by a duplicated or generic entry in xorg.conf as I was having the same trouble. When everything is set up properly the input is still slow but at least its usable (2 or 3 passes from side to side instead of around 30) and can be adjusted with kde to act normally.
Didn't realize evtouch was being included with xorg now, sorry about that (and the missing ").
Try with the cf-29 entry lifebook.c again and comment out the entire touchscreen entry in xorg.conf to check how the pad behaves and also if you are getting input from the screen through another channel. If the screen plays dead then that part is ok, if touching the screen has any effect on the cursor then you will have to find out where its getting that input.
Any reference to a generic input in xorg.conf will cause this trouble, also (if my memory is working) the xorg.conf entry for the mouse driver needs to be "mouse", I seem to remember something about "evdev" causing trouble. Adding my mouse entry just in case.

cheers

On my cf-72 both devices are on the same input(s) I get the same results from when I cat both inputs(as in /dev/input/) and touch either device. the drivers sort out what goes were. I think that you may have a problem in xorg.conf, I had the same problems untill I sorted out the xorg.conf file. I think that Ihave made changes that I forgot to post earlier. please post your entire /etc/X11/xorg.conf, here is mine;

Ping... did you have any success with that Sciallo?

Sorry, I had to put it away for just a while. The results have been the same so far. I will try again starting from scratch as soon as I get some time again. I will make sure to post results (I get the feeling I'll be coming back for more help).

I've been reading this thread ever since I bought my CF-28, and I'm having the same luck. Conan's driver works with the 2.4 kernel, but touchpad motion becomes absolute (which can make right-clicking difficult). 2.6 driver (available with most modern distros) must think that my laptop screen is just a couple inches big, and the tiny touchpad is pitifully slow-moving.

after trying everything I've read and trying tinkering with settings and code, always grabbing the very newest available code, I'm pretty convinced that there's no existing code or configuration that works correctly with my hardware. I can code some, and I am debating spending more time trying to write a driver and less time trying to configure anything that currently exists.

actually, I'm starting to rethink the whole Toughbook. the GPS feature doesn't seem to be supported under ANY operating system, except Windows 2000. the wireless Internet has a horrible range because of the Tonka-tough casing. the mobile broadband isn't very usable in my area. the touchscreen has been difficult to set up in Linux (and impossible in Windows).

the whole reason I bought the thing was because I was tired of having laptops break. I wanted something indestructible...however, despite treating this laptop just like I treat my others, the power connector has broken, the CD door has broken off, the keyboard is falling apart, the touchscreen is getting distorted, and it's now on its third hard drive.

my 9-year-old step-daughter's Thinkpad, however, has been left out in the rain, dropped from a loft and down the stairs, used as a prop for the leg of a couch, and given a big drink of Mountain Dew. it's even been stepped on by a 200+ pound man when it was covered with a towel.

someone give me a reason not to turn this rather expensive brick into wall art...I really don't -want- to give up on this thing

Okay.

The reason your stuff isn't working in Windows is because you are using the wrong drivers, or your just not using the correct drivers. Unless of course, your hardware is broken or not turned on. Look in your BIOS and insure that everything is enabled, and check the I/O address of your GPS.

I have several CF-28's using the factory GPS under Windows XP just fine, but they didn't work at first. You need the correct GPS filter driver from Panasonic, and you need the correct patch file from Microsoft so that your OS can parse the data stream from the GPS unit correctly. Without these two items your GPS WILL NOT WORK under Windows correctly. Period. We covered this issue a few months ago quite briefly in this very thread. Under Linux it is just a matter of calling it up correctly with gpsd.

Touch Screen. Under Linux it is difficult. Under Windows it is easy. You just need the correct driver loaded, then calibrate it.

Wireless. I never had any complaints about the built-in Orinoco wireless range, but then I was never further away from an AP than I though was reasonable. My newest one has the Cisco Whip antenna, but I haven't gotten a chance to really test it well as I just got it a couple of days ago.

Please post the complete model number of your CF-28 so we all know what you have. Then send me an email address I can send an attachment to, and I will email you the correct files Monday.

I liked the story about your daughter's ThinkPad. I can certainly see how the irony would aggravate your frustration.

James

model number seems to have been updated. there's a new sticker over an old one. new sticker says CD-28PCJGGPM?KB (the ? is for an illegible character...might be a B, 3, 8, or even 0 or H). my wireless is Atheros, but it's the same one that used to get much stronger reception. P3-800, DVDRW, 120GB, 1GB (what on earth is the RAM hooked up to by a ribbon cable?), transmissive 13.3" screen, and probably all else standard and generic. the amazing thing is that I can turn the laptop one way and get an excellent signal, then turn it less than 90 degrees either way and lose my signal altogether.

I've been a fan of Thinkpad's off and on for years. they've been quite rugged, but they've never had the "toys" I like from other laptops. this Toughbook had all the toys I wanted and others that held a certain amount of show-off value...plus, being a bit older, it was a bargain!

if you have drivers that work for my hardware, I would be both surprised and grateful. much Googling has resulted in drivers that Windows finds agreeable and loads fine but that result in useless hardware. I'm not too interested in making Windows work on this laptop, since I've been almost an exclusive Linux/BSD user for about five years, but if I can make everything -work-, then I think I might have some hope once again. (-:

thank you so much for your help, and if there's anything I can do to help in return, let me know. I've been programming for over 20 years and have had a computer service company for about 10.

oops, forgot my email. q-:

benjamin@winchesterpc.com

Check your email.

James

to my amazement, I have Fedora 7 working with all of the hardware, INCLUDING THE TOUCHSCREEN AND TOUCHPAD! (= (=

in the past, when I left the included evdev driver in charge, the touchpad worked, but the touchscreen only responded in the small top-left corner, which is a common problem. the MinX, MinY, MaxX, and MaxY variables did nothing. after installing the evtouch driver and disabling the default psaux driver, I'd often have no interface at all, from the touchscreen, touchpad, or even keyboard. I had tried event0, event1, and event2 and then gave up. wouldn't ya know it, mine uses event2...but I still had the screen only responding in the far corner. I multiplied the MaxX and MaxY numbers by 10 and startx'd again, and I had no change. here's where I'd given up in the past, but I was actually so so close. it turns out that beyond a certain value, the variable is ignored, and the default is used. here's my sweet spot:

MinX - 148
MinY - 320
MaxX - 3815
MaxY - 3895

even the right-click (tap-tap&hold) works this time.

additionally, by changing the "void" entry to "touchpad" and using the event2, I got my touchpad back...and in relative position mode, instead of absolute! woohoo!

now if I could only figure out how to accelerate that puny touchpad. q= oh well, I'm very happy now anyway.

thank you all for all of your hard work! big thanks to Conan, the evtouch guy

It appears that very recent versions of several distributions have all the compiling done and the touchscreen "kind of works" out of the box. It appears you have to install the evtouch_drv.so driver to get things working 100% correctly - I am having trouble figuring out how to do that properly. It seems as if evdev is loading automatically - how do I get evtouch to load instead? I have tried following the directions here and on Conan's site but I can't seem to make it work.

Both evdev and evtouch are needed, evdev for the /dev/input/event* nodes and evtouch for xorg to use the screen.
cheers

I am close but can't seem to find the right way to get the evtouch driver setup. The xorg log shows "No Input driver matching evtouch" - I have copied it to the directory outlined in the instructions on Conan's site but it doesn't seem to load.

Finally got it working on a CF-28 with SimplyMepis32 7.0 RC1. The trick with doing it the Mepis distribution was that you have to use the 0.8.0 driver from Conan's site which ends in _drv.o instead of _drv.so (even though other modules in the folder are named with a _drv.so The link below helped me figure that obscure fact out.

http://www.mepisimo.com/forum/index.php?topic=76.msg411

Then I edited xorg.conf using the Min and Max X and Y values mentioned above by benvanderjagt and everything was good. So it is possible to do this on newer distributions without having to compile anything - the steps in a nutshell are install SimplyMepis distro as normal, then just download and extract and copy the evtouch_drv.o driver from evtouch-0.8.7.tar.gz to where they tell you on Conan's site and edit xorg.conf using the information from this thread and that is all.

Ok, I am another proud cf-27 owner and have built gentoo on this beast using nothing but one floppy and a pcmcia network card... and have everything working except of course ... the touchscreen

I have tried modding the lifebook.c in my 2.6.22 sources by either renaming the DMI of cf-18 or cf-28 to cf-27 and have had no luck with either method.

od(or cat) /dev/psaux (or /dev/input/{mouse1,ts0,mice} etc.) only outputs touches on the the touchpad.

I figure until I can get some kind of raw output from the touchscreen on a virtual console then messing with x is pointless.

My toughbook is the 500mhz CF-27LBAGHDMSIRBKB

I too have no options in bios except to turn the touchscreen off or on.

Any suggestions?