I have an ACER Aspire ES1-111M running Slackware 14.2_64 and up until last kernel update everything was working fine (well the wifi/bt driver needs a separate driver).
Recently I applied all the patches including kernel and first thing I noticed was that the synaptec touch-pad stopped working.
I did a bit of fiddling and by pressing the keys to enable and disable the touch-pad sometimes even the laptop keyboard stops working (but the power button still works fortunately).
I tried compiling 4.4.247 with same options but still the very same thing is happening.

Anyone know a workaround ? (using the older kernel doesn't count ... I'm already doing that now to write this message)

If I remember right back when the laptop was new I had to append this to the elilo config "i8042.nopnp" to get the touch-pad to work but it soon became unnecessary and it is commented now but it may give a clue to what broke.

There are updates for the 'BIOS' on Acers support pages. That might help.

-->https://www.acer.com/ac/en/US/conten...ire%20ES1-111M

The newest bios (1.16) is pretty old (2015) but on the other hand the one I'm using is even older (v 1.10 2014) ... so I I'll see if it makes it any better.
I will add that I don't have high hopes for it to fix the issue because I also have a debian image on the SD and I updated that too to newest kernel (in the 4.9's for the release I'm using) and no problems there ... but it's worth a try. I'll update once I have tested.

Well it looks like I cant udate because I don't have windows at all anymore on the laptop and the bios is made as a windows exec:
I hate vendors that assume that there is only one operating system that will run on their hardware!

There are tutorials on how to update BIOS if you do not have windoze. Here is just one example.

-->https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqDU...nel=LinuxLeech

I have used this method on a system, and it worked as advertised.

Basically, you need a thumb drive, a copy of UNetbootin and of course the file(s) to update the BIOS.

1 members found this post helpful.

Updated bios but still no go for the touchpad.

To things come to mind.

1. Get a USB mouse and run that. I have a Logitech mouse, it comes with a small USB adapter, and it works well. That is on an Acer Swift SF314.

2. Get the older kernel package, and re-install that. There is a site in the UK that has older packages.

15.0 hopefully is not too far off in the distance. That may help.

A laptop is handy because it is self sufficient ... I can pull out a usb mous but that's not the point ... I mean a work around for getting the onboard touchpad to work

Just as a side note: 4.4.227 already had the issue it's just that I did not upgrade to that kernel. But the one before that (4.4.217) works fine.
I will try to find which kernel version brakes the synaptec driver on my ACER and hopefully pinpoint which part of the patch is responsible.
Maybe I should change the Title if possible.

Anyone else have the same issue ?

Last working kernel is 4.4.222

Have you tried one of Alienbob's live versions of current to see if that works?

I don't want to use current ... it requires too much work.
I was hoping to be able to find exactly which part of the 4.4.223 patch brakes the kernel on my laptop ... but the patch has nearly 7700 entries ... even if I exclude all the architectures that have nothing to do with my laptop it is still way more then I can manage

The suggestion is to find out if a newer kernel will get the device working. You can run it as a live distro from a USB stick. No need to install. It will tell you if a newer kernel will help.

Current will be 15, sooner or later. 14.2 is old.

Your other choice is to look at the kernel configuration on a kernel that allowed the device to work, and then re-compile the current kernel with the same options.

Last thought, is it possible another package that got updated on maintenance caused the problem?

Hi "louigi600",

A while back a new kernel was issued for 14.2 --> I installed it, and rebooted. A few seconds into booting the video screen of my computer would go blank. I tried a bunch of things, and none worked. I asked in this forum, and none of the suggestions worked. Eventually, I went into the -current repository, got the then current kernel and its modules, and installed them. The video problem went away, and I noticed no other problems related to plopping into 14.2 the kernel which was intended for -current. I used the computer in this condition for a long time, updating the -current kernel from time to time.

Perhaps the current kernel of -current will work in your situation.

Yes I had been thinking to use just kernel from current ... or since I'm compiling kernels with my own setup I might go with 4.9 (since debian seems not to have the issue on that kernel version).
But I still would like to stick with the official kernel release for the Slackware version I'm using.
I noticed there were several i2c and i8042 patches on 4.4.248 but unfortunately it still did not work.
I filed a bug report on kernel bugzilla ... hopefully it will get fixed.