Hi All,
I recently decided to try out a linux distro on my laptop after years of only ever using windows systems. So i downloaded Ubuntu 11.4 and ran it dual boot with windows 7 and used it primarily for about a week. I was really impressed with the speed and functions and would like to continue using a Linux OS. However my laptop has a Synaptics Clickpad which was horrible to use with Ubuntu (No Right Click with the button, no click and drag etc).

I tried to fix it with some of the tutorials on the web but with no results and found out that Synaptics support seem to be lacking with most distros. So i was wondering how anyone else has solved this problem and could recommend a distro to try. I am a new user that doesn't mind doing some coding as long as its in a tutorial or something i can work out and also i guess something with a easy GUI for an easy transition.

I have heard good things about openSUSE for clickpad support but also read it can be quite slow.

For reference my laptop details are below:
HP Pavilion dv6-3132tx Entertainment Notebook PC

Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-720QM 1.6 GHz
Chipset: Intel® HM55 chipset
Memory: 4 GB DDR3 (2 x 2048 MB)
Internal drives: 640 GB SATA Hard Disk Drive 5400 rpm
Optical drives: LightScribe SuperMulti DVD±R/RW with Double Layer Support
Display size: 39.6 cm (15.6") diagonal High-Definition LED HP BrightView Display
Display resolution: 1366 x 768
Graphics: ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 5650 Graphics (switchable) with 1 GB dedicated
Network interface: Integrated 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN
Wireless technologies: 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth® wireless networking

Thanks very much!

You can find several tests in internet. Primary see site Distro Watch. It is about all Linux distribution. It have advanced search? that can find distro of your preference. Anyone have own taste, because to make any advise is difficult. I use Open Suse for a year on my laptop with similar hardware characteristic as you have. And I am satisfied. Previously I used Mandriva, on old Desktop with Pentium 4 processor, version 2010 also work fine. What is about Ubuntu, I think, as well as Fedora, that it is relatively stable distro. Not all if you read on distribution page the word "stable" it is really stable. Fedora is announced as stable, Aptosid as unstable Debin branch, but I had no serious problems with aptosid, and many with fedora.

1 members found this post helpful.

thanks mate ill try openSUSE when my datalimit is back!

Hi, you say no right click. have you tried pressing with two fingers?
My samsung has a synaptics touch pad too, and it worked horrible, I use slackware with the default xorg server and where the right click button usually is on window (bottom right of pad), if i click there it still does left click, however if i click anywhere with two fingers, it acts like a right click. It works a hell of a lot better than the way windows does it, infact i honestly can't believe how horrible the touch pad is for windows on this particular laptop, it's really buggy. Either way, try a double finger click.

hey mate,
Nah i didn't try a two finger click shall have to give it a go. Does slackware support click and drag?
Thank you!

have you try checking out the touchpad option?

Hi,
I tried the two finger right click last night and it works. I have to say that i really like it!

The only options for the touchpad i have found are the ones in mouse management to allow two finger scrolling and edge scroll. Are these the options?

Thank you!

sorry for the late reply, so did that work? if not, you might need to find the package.
hope it helps