[SOLVED] Sentelic Touchpad not recognised correctly on olde netbook. Hints, tips to fix?

Jedinovice · 01-15-2018, 07:31 AM

OK, here I think is a tricky one, I think. Dunno if this is classed as hardware or software, mind.

I have recently resurrected an olde Atom n455 single core netbook. Now, that might seem useless to most but the machine looks to be of great use to me. Don't ask why now! It takes a lot of explaining. Suffice to say that slow is OK but portability and battery life are critical for my needs.

The battery needs replacing but still has some 20 minutes charge. Other than that – hardware all good. However, the touchpad, while it works as a mouse, is not recognised as a touchpad. I can live with that EXCEPT that I cannot turn off the touchpad while typing! (OK, I can with the fn key bit it's not quite the best solution.)

Result: The finger keep just brushing the touchpad lightly, the cursor jumps and my text flies about! It's a nightmare to type on!!

And, why do I want to use a old single core netbook? Because I need light, small and portable and my wife keeps taking my newer laptops so I need one she won't touch with a barge pole!!!

I am running PCLinuxOS on the machine and it actually runs like a charm on this old netbook despite refusing to boot at all on more modern hardware. I am loving PCLInuxOS on this netbook! (Yes, I am even running KDE on this dinosaur. Just... chalk it up to deviancy. Though many people do not know how optimized KDE is now and well it can run on minimal hardware.)

System settings reports "No touchpad found." But in 'hardware information – input devices' the OS reports "FSPPS/2 Sentelic FingerSensingPad" (Type: Mouse.)

Uh oh. I have had experience of Sentelic touchpads before and I have never managed to get them recognized in the OS. I wonder if it is even possible. I think Linux Sentelic support is no more than "It's a mouse, use it" and that's it.

Now, I am extremely busy right now (am trying to hire more staff due to the overload!) but that means I am not using the atom fully yet and so can afford to break the OS and re-install if I have to. It also does not take a minute to input the odd couple of CLI commands, mind, so I can follow advice and report back. Reports might be slow due to said workload, mind.

Note that I have tested that 'fn' touchpad off button and it works... which does help but I prefer something a bit more sophisticated. Oh, also notice that the netbook is a locally produced model that the West will never have heard of. But is compatible with another locally produced brand... which the West has never heard of. (Where I live now - Indonesia - there are no worldwide Indonesian companies because Indonesia is one of the few nations in the world that enforces double taxation. So local branks such as Axioo and SMK will have no equivalent abroad.)

So can the touchpad be recognized as such or is the Selentic PS/2 touchpad just a no hoper and only seen as a mouse?

Many thanks in advance.

sidzen · 01-15-2018, 07:42 AM

to turn touchpad off, use

Code:

xinput

to list devices ("id=X")
then

Code:

xinput --disable X

cannot help further at this point.
best wishes!

Jedinovice · 01-15-2018, 08:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sidzen

to turn touchpad off, use

Code:

xinput

to list devices ("id=X")
then

Code:

xinput --disable X

cannot help further at this point.
best wishes!

Thanks and noted.

But... then I may as well use the fn+touchpad off key!!

ondoho · 01-16-2018, 02:17 AM

there's a program called syndaemon that will automatically disable the touchpad when you start typing.
however, if your touchpad is not recognized as a synaptics device, it might not work either...
i hope you find a satisfactory driver for this.

https://duckduckgo.com/html?q=linux%...ngerSensingPad
the archlinux forum thread looks promising.

Jedinovice · 01-17-2018, 07:16 PM

Many thanks for that. As it is, though, I have read these threads!!

Checking a bit deeper though, I now remember why I could not get a previous Sentelic touchpad to work. An open source driver was being developed but Sentelic made patent demands and development ceased. Sentelic never released a real driver of their own either.

The FSPC beta driver will not install easily in PCLInuxOS and I suspect will not work. Also, I do not think it covers touring off the touchpad while typing.

Sooo.... the only support for the Seletic touchpad in Linux is... "It's a PS/2 mouse, deal with it!" As it stands, because I have no interest in multi-guesture operation - and the touchpad is tiny anyway - and just want to stop the text jumping while typing, the fn+touchpad off key does the job. It's not A1 but does the job.

From my reading it seems there is no solution to getting Sentelic recognised as a touchpad as Sentelic would not release a proper driver and prevented the open source community from doing so which... explains why we have Synaptic and Elan touchpads in laptops now and not Sentelic!!!

I am also up to my armpits in work... while standing on a stepladder. I can't go too deep into this now and the machine is working well enough for my needs. Well, absent a new battery while I will get in February. I am preparing for interviews for more staff!!!

Many thanks for everyones' help. I will mark this as solved because there is an answer:

1) If it's a Sentelic touchpad it's PS/2 mouse support only. The threads are clear on this. Once Sentelic put out patent demands development of a proper drive just ceased! That's why there is near zero discussion of the issue post 2011. OEM's seem to have dropped Sentelic as a touchpad provider after that.
2) I can use the touchpad fn control on the machine. It'll do. Most of the time I can work with mouse at home and I am not typing while on the move. [I watch anime on the machine instead!]

Thanks again. I said I thought it was tricky!

ferrari · 01-17-2018, 11:19 PM

Yes, the device being treated as a mouse does present a challenge here, since it's not usual to need to disable such a device while typing. FWIW, I found a stackexchange thread which included an answer with a simple script that watch mouse button states. I'm no programmer, but I had a quick play and adapted (hacked) the script to inhibit a mouse device while keyboard activity is detected. It seemed to work ok during my testing (in fact it's running in the background as I type this)...

Code:

#!/bin/bash

KBD_ID=11
MOUSE_ID=8

STATE1=$(xinput --query-state $KBD_ID | grep 'key\[' | sort)
while true; do
    STATE2=$(xinput --query-state $KBD_ID | grep 'key\[' | sort)
    # comm -13 <(echo "$STATE1") <(echo "$STATE2")
    xinput --set-prop $MOUSE_ID "Device Enabled" 0
    sleep 0.5
    xinput --set-prop #MOUSE_ID "Device Enabled" 1
    STATE1=$STATE2
done

I made it executable

Code:

chmod +x watch-kbd

and executed with

Code:

./watch-kbd &

It seemed to work alright and could be added as a KDE autostart script if desired. I'm sure it could be refined and device names used rather than device IDs (which could change if another input device was added or removed and the system rebooted perhaps).

Hope this works for you.

ondoho · 01-18-2018, 01:08 AM

^ was just going to recommend something similar.
i can see writing this myself in bash quite easily, but someone else did it in python: https://forum.pine64.org/showthread....32956#pid32956

ferrari · 01-18-2018, 02:12 AM

Nice. Thanks for sharing that link.

Jedinovice · 01-19-2018, 04:03 AM

Wow! Thanks for that Ferrari and guys... I have created a shell file, copied that lot in and set a KDE keybord shortcut to it. (LOVE KDE's keyboard shortcut support!)

At the moment the script seems to be holding together but it will take a few days testing to be sure this is solution. If it is: Great! If it isn't, the fn + touchpad key will do.

I will report back later.

Again, many thanks.

Jedinovice · 02-18-2018, 06:49 AM

Hi. Sorry about the huge delay in giving feedback especially to Ferrari. I have been massively overworked and scrambling to find new staff to help carry the load. I have done it, contracts signed this week and I am finally getting some rest. But, until this weekend, outside of work I have simply been asleep.

Well, at least I am overworked for myself now and not the boss and that means I can (and have) hire(d) staff! Now recovering from exhaustion.

As it is... the script so kindly provided by Ferrari does NOT help me with the touchpad. It see what it is doing ad it tries but the touchpad is far too sensitive and ‘interrupts frequently.’ I can see the script working with other devices but not this.

Note that this laptop - I have since learned - was built by a student at a vocational school as part of a local ‘social investment’ campaign run a number of years ago... which also probably helps explain the clicking fan, the weak battery life (especially for a n455!) and the sound output via headphones being weak for the left ear.

I suspect this was an early build attempt. I do not know if this was built to be sold or sold at a low price for students to assemble and use... The technology is bottom of the price range for all components!

Anyway, the machine does work well enough for my needs, no-one will touch it, which is a good thing... and the ‘touchpad off’ fn key has proven to be a good enough solution.
So thanks to all for the help. I will leave things as they are now.