Input issues on laptop

PurpleDragon · 07-03-2006, 07:21 AM

Hi everyone. This is my very first post on here, so please be gentle if I post a question that has already been asked.

I'm having problems with text input on my Acer Travelmate 243. The touchpad works fine (was recognized automatically by SuSE 10.1) and I've also connected an A4tech SWOP-23 mouse via USB that's been recognized as "PS/2+ USB Mouse".

When I input text, the keyboard randomly leaves out keystrokes, repeatssssss characters until I press another key or "stickies" Ctrl, Shift or Alt. I suspect that this behaviour has to do with the touchpad in one way or another since one could easily touch it accidentally while typing, but I'm not really sure. No alterations have been made to the kernel in any way if that's of any importance. Everything on the laptop is practically default since I'm quite new to the world of Linux.

I hope that someone can enlighten me about what is going wrong.

Cheers, Dragon
Help a newb please!

raskin · 07-03-2006, 07:50 AM

Well, did you try to enter password in BIOS?? Not to set it (cancel it afterwards), but to see if it is hardware problem. If in BIOS you see the same problem, go to get your warranty service for broken keyboard.

PurpleDragon · 07-03-2006, 07:55 AM

I'm practically 100% sure that the key switches themselves are fine, since the problem never surfaced in Windows (which I ran on that machine until a couple of days ago). Whatelse could be wrong?

raskin · 07-03-2006, 08:02 AM

Well, did it occur the first day (first hour, first minute) you started to use linux? When KB breaks, it's like this - everything is good, good, good, good, oops, normal, full oops. (My personal experience with DELL KB problem. Turned out to be rather widespread - service center knew it well).

Also, does it occur in text console? With mouse plugged off? If no for one of these questions - then it's probably really software question.

PurpleDragon · 07-03-2006, 08:17 AM

What if it really has to do with the touchpad? So far I haven't found a way to effectively disable it. When I do that through Yast, check "disable this pointer" for the Synaptics device and do a reboot, the touchpad still reacts to taps and movements :-/

raskin · 07-03-2006, 08:23 AM

Well, edit /etc/xorg.conf by hand in order to remove touchpad. Read man xorg.conf, or post sections "pointer".

PurpleDragon · 07-03-2006, 08:36 AM

There you go... I hope I caught the right section of the file.

Code:

Section "InputDevice"
  Driver       "kbd"
  Identifier   "Keyboard[0]"
  Option       "Protocol" "Standard"
  Option       "XkbLayout" "de"
  Option       "XkbModel" "pc105"
  Option       "XkbRules" "xfree86"
  Option       "XkbVariant" "nodeadkeys"
EndSection


Section "InputDevice"
  Driver       "mouse"
  Identifier   "Mouse[1]"
  Option       "Buttons" "5"
  Option       "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
  Option       "Name" "PS/2+USB Mouse"
  Option       "Protocol" "explorerps/2"
  Option       "Vendor" "Sysp"
  Option       "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
  Driver       "synaptics"
  Identifier   "Mouse[3]"
  Option       "Buttons" "5"
  Option       "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
  Option       "Emulate3Buttons" "on"
  Option       "InputFashion" "Mouse"
  Option       "Name" "Synaptics;Touchpad"
  Option       "Protocol" "explorerps/2"
  Option       "SHMConfig" "on"
  Option       "Vendor" "Sysp"
  Option       "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

raskin · 07-03-2006, 08:46 AM

Yes, I would look into the same sections..

Backup xorg.conf.

Try commenting out "synaptics" device - it's touchpad.
Another try is adding
Option "TouchpadOff" "2"
in its section
Afterwards (if it doesn't help) try to set your default runlevel to 3, comment out synaptics section and change /dev/input/mice to /dev/input/<something> in Mouse[1] section. Try everything and check if after xinit . Maybe some way it'll work.

But personally I don't believe in touchpad as a reason for kb problems.

PurpleDragon · 07-03-2006, 12:22 PM

I commented the relevant lines out. We'll see if that does anything. Thanks for now

PurpleDragon · 07-03-2006, 01:19 PM

That does indeed do something... X doesn't even start anymore if I comment said lines out of /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Changed the file back to original and it boots fine. I guess I have to find another way to disable the touchpad then, IF it's the troublemaker.

raskin · 07-03-2006, 01:26 PM

What did you comment out?? from 'Section "InputDevice"' to 'EndSection' (with "synaptics")? And did you try to add option 'Option "TouchpadOff" "2"'?

PurpleDragon · 07-03-2006, 01:58 PM

The section looked something like this:

Code:

#Section "InputDevice"
#  Driver       "synaptics"
#  Identifier   "Mouse[3]"
#  Option       "Buttons" "5"
#  Option       "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
#  Option       "Emulate3Buttons" "on"
#  Option       "InputFashion" "Mouse"
#  Option       "Name" "Synaptics;Touchpad"
#  Option       "Protocol" "explorerps/2"
#  Option       "SHMConfig" "on"
#  Option       "Vendor" "Sysp"
#  Option       "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
#EndSection

raskin · 07-03-2006, 02:00 PM

And what were X errors (in /var/log/Xorg.0.log or in /usr/local/var/log/Xorg.0.log)? And what after touchpadOff?