I have an MSI Wind laptop running 12.1, and the synaptics touchpad on it is not detected by Slackware. I can use it and have all the features working for Windows, as well as Slackware 12.1 using the huge-smp kernel that shipped with 12.1. I made a custom kernel, and I do have the Synaptic drivers built in, as well as psmouse (I've also made a kernel where psmouse is a module, still nothing)
#dmesg and #/var/log/Xorg.0.log don't mention anything about synaptics, syn, Syn, SYN, etc. I've grepped everything.
I've modified the lines in /etc/modprobe.d/psmouse, I've tried commenting out the line, I've tried proto=any. I've tried removing the proto= part in /etc/rc.d/rc.modules, but I haven't been able to get it to work.
/proc/bus/input/devices lists only two options for mice, one is the usb mouse I am using until I get this working, the second is listed as "macintosh mouse button emulation" at mouse0 and event5. I've cat'd both these files, but got nothing with either my touchpad or usb mouse. My usb mouse is event7 and mouse1, and cat-ing those files and moving the usb mouse gives me results, but not the touchpad.
Is there a kernel option I should have enabled?
Here is the .config of the kernel I am currently using:
http://pastebin.ca/1222378

I don't have a laptop, so I know very little (well, nothing) about the synaptics drivers. However, I seem to recall reading this thread, which links to this bug report. In other words, you should make sure that psmouse is being loaded with the kernel defaults and NOT proto=imps (which is the default in Slackware). I'm not at my Linux box right now, so I can't look into this and I may be completely and totally wrong -- but I just thought I would bring up that thread in case it is at all relevant.

Hi Romanus,

I just finished getting my own Synaptics pad to work under Slackware 12.1. Maybe my experience with it can help.

You indicated that you have the synaptics package installed so I will assume it is OK.

After that the first tripping point for me was to make sure the pad was detected correctly during boot. The single indicator for that was to check dmesg output for 'SynPS/2', if it is simply 'PS/2' it will not work (except as a generic mouse).

You can check this after boot by cat /proc/bus/input/devices where you must also see 'SynPS/2' - anything else won't work.

Commenting out 'options psmouse proto=imps' in /etc/modprobe.d/psmouse allowed mine to be detected a 'SynPS/2' device... but it still did not work.

Mine installed as /dev/psaux and if you cat /dev/psaux you should see output when you touch the pad.

So, AFTER getting it recognized as 'SynPS/2' I played with the /etc/X11/xorg.conf and found that if I tried to enable another pointing device, like this...
(See /usr/share/docs/synaptics-xxxxx/INSTALL for Device section - just copy and paste into xorg.conf and set name of device to your liking).

Section ServerLayout
...
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "SynapticsMouse" "AlwaysCore"

...
EndSection
(Your name for 'SynapticsMouse' will probably be different)

It still did not work - although not sure why...

BUT, if I comment out the Mouse0 and make Synaptics device "CorePointer" it works fine!


Section ServerLayout
...
#InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "SynapticsMouse" "CorePointer"
...
EndSection

This means that I cannot have two pointers - but that is fine for me.

So, to summarize my ramblings...

1. Get device recognized as 'SynPS/2' first - editing psmouse should do that.
2. Disable all other pointers in xorg.conf and make Synaptics "CorePointer" - it should work.
3. If you need multiple pointers... I'll see if I can both mine working and get back to ya!

Hope this helps - pardon any incoherence - it is late!

In my blog post here, I have how I got my synaptics working (towards the bottom of the entry), which basically meant commenting out the item in /etc/modprobe.d/psmouse

Mine worked after that as a regular mouse, then I just added all the config stuff into my xorg.conf.

I have successfully had an extra mouse hooked up as well and it worked fine. Both of them functioned at the same time.

Astrogeek, you rock! I can't believe I never thought about /dev/psaux. I did '#sudo cat /dev/psaux' and everything started falling into place. I can finally cast of the chains of Microsoft oppression with a fully functional Slackware system!
EDIT: It had worked, but I rebooted and it stopped. /dev/psaux won't do anything for me anymore. I'm still trying to figure out what happened.

Thanks for the nice comment - sorry it was short lived!

I love "I Love Rock and Roll" by Joan Jett - unfortunately I am old enough to remember the original released by the Arrows... but I digress...

OK, back to your Synaptics problem. If I were troubleshooting this on my box I would first split it into two major possibilities:

1. Device not correctly identified/driver not loaded at boot.
2. X not correctly configured to use the device.

To test the first possibility you may do either of...

cat /proc/bus/input/devices - look for SynPS/2
dmesg |grep 'SynPS/2'

If it is there, then device is being correctly identified, if not make sure that psmouse is being loaded (lsmod |grep psmouse), and make sure the 'options psmouse proto=imps' line is commented out in /etc/modprobe.d/psmouse. If you edited or chmod'd any other files before it quit last time, double check for syntax errors or bad permissions.

Once you get 'SynPS/2' as the device identifier confirm that it is 'live' by cat /dev/psaux and drag your finger across the pad - you will see stuff in your terminal... at this point all that is left is X config.

Then, on to the second part...

In case you have not done so already, run xorgsetup to get a good starting point for /etc/X11/xorg.conf (aka. xorg.conf), then...

See /usr/share/docs/synaptics-xxxxx/INSTALL and copy the section "InputDevice" into your xorg.conf, be sure it includes the following lines:

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "SynapticsMouse"
Driver "synaptics"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
...
EndSection

The 'Identifier' may be anything as long as you use the same name in the "ServerLayout" section.

Also, add a line in the "Module" section...

Section "Module"
...
Load "synaptics"
...
EndSection

Finally, at the top of the file in the ServerLayout section...

Section "ServerLayout"
...
#Enable next two lines to allow multiple mice...
#InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
#InputDevice "SynapticsMouse" "AlwaysCore"
...
#Comment out above lines, enable this one for Synaptics only and tests
InputDevice "SynapticsMouse" "CorePointer"
...
EndSection

As I indicated before, I could only get the Synaptics as "CorePointer" to work, your mileage may vary...

At this point - restart X and hopefully enjoy touchpad scrolling!

I hope this is a little more concise than my previous post - and that I did not forget anything - let me know if this works, or at what point you get stuck.

Good luck!

It works, but it seems like the kernel randomly detects it, I've been trying to find a pattern to it, but I can't find one. Sometimes it sees it as a PS/2 mouse, sometimes the SynPS/2. I am really perplexed by this.

Man... this is weird. I have it working on my laptop without a problem and it is using /dev/mouse.

And with the mouse labeled as CorePointer in ServerLayout, I can successfully hook up a second mouse without rebooting X. At that point both mice function.

The only thing I did, was comment out that line, build the synaptics driver and edit my xorg.conf. Although figuring out I had to comment out that line took a lot of trial and error.

If 'SynPS/2' is there sometimes and sometimes not (I think that is what you were saying), then my guess wuld be that it is being disabled by BIOS/ACPI. (I am not exactly sure what terminology applies here - anyone?).

I saw this on an older laptop a couple of years ago and was able to fix it by passing 'pci=noacpi' (or maybe 'acpi=off') to the kernel at boot.

If you are using lilo then add 'pci=noacpi' to the append line for your boot kernel stanza. I do not use grub so can't help there but I am sure you can find an easy answer here too.

One question - when it fails, do you see 'psmouse' or 'input' in the output of 'lsmod'?

That fixed it, but I'm not entirely happy with it, I get only one penguin now at boot, one processor, and only hibernate features, no suspend or sleep modes, which, for a laptop, are kinda important. Is there a better fix for this anywhere?
When it doesn't work, (acpi=on) yes, I do see psmouse in my lsmod. I don't see input though, I think I have that compiled into the kernel.

Hi Romanus,

Sorry for the delay in my responses, hope you have not given up yet!

I did a fresh install of Slackware 12.1 on a new partition just to try and understand this Synaptic thing. Oddly enough, I got different behaviour from it on the same machine, just a clean install to new partition.

I found that I could get it to recognize the touchpad correctly as SynPS/2 with pci=noacpi as you did, but not without it (it was not intermittent as yours).

But - I found that if I did the following it worked always without the pci=noacpi or acpi=off:

In the system BIOS I disabled USB KB/Mouse legacy emulation, and instead of commenting out the options line in /etc/modprobe.d/psmouse, I changed it to...

options proto=any
(EDIT:Previously said 'proto=auto', which is not valid, but works by default oddly enough)

Now it works correctly all the time (using same xorg.conf from earlier posts).

So...

1. See if your CMOS has a USB KB/Mouse legacy option - disable it
2. Change to the proto=any line and enable it...

I am trying to learn my through the touchpad thing end to end as time permits, so if I come up with anything else I'll add it here.

Good luck

EDIT: Everything below this line added after more psmouse school...

I found some references online to passing the parameter proto=synaptics, but if I try to load the module with that param it chokes - so I dont think that is valid.

I did however find that 'auto' is accepted by the module and does not work the same as default (ie, no parameter). I had a look at the source and although I am a C programmer (at least a little bit) I could not make much sense of how it worked nor find how 'auto' was being handled, even though it is clear where 'imps', etc are handled.

But - I have found that 'any' or 'auto' both work reliably on this box.

To speed your testing, boot into a text terminal and try the various options interactively:

Remove the module...
rmmod psmouse (or modprobe -r, rmmod is old habit)
cat /proc/bus/input/devices (to see that it is 'gone')

modprobe psmouse proto=auto
cat /proc/bus/input/devices (to see how it was handled)

Rinse and repeat till you find what works - much faster than rebooting.

One last thing, you can pass params to psmouse at boot as kernel parameters using the form psmouse.proto=auto in lilo or grub. I have not used this and have no reason to think would make any difference in your case, but might be nice to know - if you are out of things to try!

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Thank you for your help, I am sorry for taking so long to respond, it's been a hard couple days, and my hard drive crashed and I needed to reinstall. Still same problems. I had one day where I was able to boot again and again, and today I had to try for a long time to get it to work. Maybe it's a driver problem. I'll try what you've said, but I don't think other than the above there is anything else to do.
Thank you for being so helpful.

I think I might have figured out my problem, it seems like if it looks for the mouse late, it will detect the synaptics, if it detects it early, it will not, I noticed a line that mentioned something about PS/2 early on (before udevtrigger) and if it does boot synaptics, it will boot it after udevtrigger, but before udevtrigger --retry-failed. So is there any way I can delay the process?