How to get full touchpad functionality with Synaptics Touchpad on lubuntu?
 

I am using lubuntu 16.04 64-bit on a HP Elitebook 8570p.
The touchpad works. I can move it, click and doubleclick.
The button to turn off the touchpad does not work. The touchpad is also too sensitive. My palm makes it move and click everywhere. The secondary left-click, has strange behavior.

I do get a bunch of settings when using , but it's hard when I don't know what the different settings do.

Is there a firmware with drivers equal to the one HP provides for SUSE for lubuntu? I couldn't really find anything.
It's just awful to use it in its current state. Especially when it marks and deletes what I type.

The existing synaptics driver should be able to be configured to have your touchpad working as you like. Install 'gpointing-device-settings', then you should be able to enable palm detection and configure tapping and scrolling as you'd like.

After finding and installing it, I could configure some settings. The touchpad has become usable, but the integrated button (with a light) for turning off the keypad, still doesn't work. Settings like touch area when palm is detected, is not a feature. I can't invert scrolling with two fingers and choose scroll distance and sensitivity. The touchpad still can't utilize most of its features.

It will only provide functionality exposed by the driver for the particular hardware concerned. Maybe you could post the parameters available via synclient. FWIW, with recent Xorg builds there has been a move away from the synaptic and evdev drivers towards using the libinput driver stack. I'm not sufficiently familiar with *ubuntu releases to know whether this might be an option here. Some input hardware is better supported by libinput but it is work in progress, so in some cases there will be limited functionality.

Often, the appropriate kernel support is required for the special keys or buttons to work eg the hp-wmi driver. However, if the laptop is new, the driver support may not yet be there.

It was bought three years ago, so it isn't "too new".

Okay, so without being familiar with this particular model (I'm using a ProBook 450 G2), you might need to submit a bug report if you believe there is a problem with the touchpad on/off button.

The synaptics driver may still provide the most functional support for your touchpad, but AFAIU it is not being developed further, so you're unlikely to see the features you'd like implemented happening via this driver. Newer X-servers (and therefore distros) are moving towards using the libinput driver. This hasn't been good news for all users, as with the wide-range of devices that are out there, not all of the features will be implemented for given devices as might be expected. For example

http://who-t.blogspot.co.nz/2015/03/...port-edge.html

The desktop environments will be expected to take up some of the required behaviours.

Background (libinput) from Peter Hutterer (developer)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxhdba4RS8s
http://who-t.blogspot.co.nz/2016/

From what I can make of all of this, bug reports or mailing list posts will be needed for those who believe features aren't working as expected, or features/options that should be implemented, but of course this won't help those still using the legacy user-space input drivers.

https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/libinput/

With synclient, have you tried changing the line

TouchpadOff = 0

to


TouchpadOff = 1 ??
That should switch it off.

How things are right now
 

The touchpad has a hidden button in the top-left with a light. When I double-click the button, the touchpad is supposed to turn off, one set of right- and leftclick buttons should stop working, and the light should light up in orange. Currently, the button seems disabled or something.
The HP Elitebook 8570p, has two sets of left- and rightclick buttons. It also has a joystick/nub in the middle of the keyboard. The settings for the touchpad, do not change the settings for the joystick/nub.
Tapping the touchpad is far too sensitive. Disabling the feature in gpointing-device-settings, does nothing.
Setting a comfortable sensitivity, seems impossible. The cursor moves too much when I slide slowly, and not enough when I slide fast.
Scrolling is too insensitive, and each time it scrolls, it scrolls the distance of a normal scrollwheel.

I downloaded the driver from the hp site and extracted it and changed the permissions.
Typically i try to avoid driver issues like the plague, but i have them now sitting here (one 32bit package and one 64bit package).
Both are RPM. Could you not repackage them as .deb packages with alien or something like that and install them?
Maybe that will work.

Hi...

Do you have a link to the page where you downloaded those drivers, by any chance? :)

Regards...

This was actually one of the first things I tried. The problem is the error I get when running the SynTPCpl file (The file the shortcut points to) (After the installation has finished successfully): error while loading shared libraries: libwx_gtk2u-2.8.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

I have tried looking for libwx_gtk2u-2.8.so.0, but I haven't found a way to install it.

Hi...

Try installing the package below and see if that helps...

Disclaimer: Be careful with commands including "su" or "sudo" especially, as it will essentially allow root access to your system. Mistakes could possibly damage or even destroy your OS. ;)

Regards...

http://h20564.www2.hp.com/hpsc/swd/p...3436312E746172

The package does not seem to exist in any of my current repositories.