My Touchpad Will not Operate on IBM ThinkPad R51
 

I bought an old Thinkpad R51 (with Pentium M CPU) and have installed Linux Mint 14 which supports non-PAE CPUs.
The seller said the touchpad did'nt work any more after installing windows 7 (And the OS key was illegal).
I want it to work and found The UltraNav driver which is touchpad driver for the ThinkPad R51 at LenovoDriver.com.

I did not find a version for Linux, though. And I found this comment:
"Your ThinkPad R51′s touchpad might not operate for the reason that the touchpad is incompatible together with the operating technique installed around the laptop. That is ordinarily the case when applying an unsupported version of your Windows OS or an option OS which include Ubuntu".

I downloaded the version for Windows XP and tried to run it in the Terminal. But this is my very first day on Linux Mint (!!!) and I did not get it to work.

Is the touchpad lost forever, or does some solution exist?
Does anyone know?

You could check 'system settings' as the last poster implies but you should(?) be getting drivers/firmware from your repositaries, ie, via your system rather than a manufacturer's website, at least it is easier, meantime does a usb mouse work ok?
I suggest you search for "keyboard" on the 'synaptic package manager' and look for something that gives functionality to older laptop touchpads, "touchpad" would be another search term. I have debian7 running on a Thinkpad 41 so there is hope!

Fred.

Thank you for your answer Fred. I have a USB mouse and it's working fine. I started Synaptic package manager, searched for touchpad and found some. I tried to install kcm-touchpad (dummy transitional package for kde-config-touchpad) and kde-config-touchpad (Touchpad configuration tool). The installation worked, but afterward nothing happened and after a restart they still had the tag 'not installed'. I see a German user reporting the same problem. This is my very first week working on Linux Mint and I have just some few evening hours to use it. Eventually I will be better to understand this.
But something wonders me. In 'System Information', devices, input devices, I find for instance lid switch, keypad, thinkpad-buttons and the trackpoint button. I expected to find the touchpad as well, but it is not there. Is the main problem that the device is not recogniced? Should I perhaps look for a physical explanation?

Ah, just checked the 'support list' for Mint, Mint 14 is not supported anymore so that is why the download was not installed. 14 is a short term release (perhaps only 6 months) but long term releases last at least 3 years, some now state 5 years. Note that kde software is ment for kde desktops, the Mint default is either Mate or Cinnamon; if your system had been supported (ie you had an active repositary) you might have got a load of dependent software downloaded with it and that might not have been what you wanted.
Lubuntu is often recommended for older systems and they do a LTS version (14.04), Mint's latest is 17, or Debian will work with non PAE CPU's but not as user easy.

Fred.

Thanks a lot for your help. It is impressing how fast and exact answers I got in this forum.
I recognize this issue as solved, and let it sleep for the moment. I will remember Lubuntu could be the solution. You see, I also have a Thinkpad T60 waiting for me to learn Linux, and wil go for Linux Mint 17 on that one.

Thanks
 

Thanks a lot Didier. The task is sleeping for the moment, but I will remember this when I return to it. Bjoern G

On my acer it has a button to disable/enable touchpad on the Fn key
http://www.ehow.com/how_5647892_disa...ad-laptop.html
Also on debian live-cd the touchpad wasn't working, but it worked when I installed debian.

Rouch pad: A Physical matter
 

ARGHHHHH!!!
The seller had installed new RAM before I got the machine, and in this Thinkpad you ought to remove the keyboard to reach one of the RAM-places. I discovered that the cable from the touchpad was loosened - by accident for sure. I just connected it, and everything worked properly.
Thanks a lot to you helpers, I'm learning a lot these days!