Synaptics (laptop touchpad) problems

cwwilson721 · 11-14-2006, 12:45 AM

Guess what?

I have the same touchpad, the major difference is that mine works.

Want to know why? In the driver from talia.com, there is a file in there called TROUBLESHOOTING.TXT. In that file they say the same things about cat /proc/bus/input/devices, and if the Alps is not showing, to try to add to /etc/rc.d/rc.local:

Code:

/sbin/rmmod psmouse; /sbin/modprobe -v psmouse

Worked like a charm for me....

Documentation is so cool when it works and is read...lol

Mr_C · 11-15-2006, 04:21 PM

So does installing the kernel-2.6.17.13-modules (disk 2) help?

cwwilson721 · 11-15-2006, 04:25 PM

Need them for other stuff too.

wakeboarder3780 · 11-16-2006, 09:18 AM

Ooo I got all excited for a second, but then i got let down. Again I should appologize for the delay, my school schedule is hectic right now and Im rushing to get some programming projects in by the due date.

Anyway I checked and indeed it was a typo, my bad. I AM running .17.13

On the modules package I got excited by your idea because I dont remember installing the extra package from disc 2. But then i ran the command and i got:
/var/log/packages/kernel-modules-2.4.33.3-i486-1

So apparently I did install them? Or should there be more packages?

keeping my fingers crossed here as well.

xflow7 · 11-16-2006, 09:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wakeboarder3780

Ooo I got all excited for a second, but then i got let down. Again I should appologize for the delay, my school schedule is hectic right now and Im rushing to get some programming projects in by the due date.

Anyway I checked and indeed it was a typo, my bad. I AM running .17.13

On the modules package I got excited by your idea because I dont remember installing the extra package from disc 2. But then i ran the command and i got:
/var/log/packages/kernel-modules-2.4.33.3-i486-1

So apparently I did install them? Or should there be more packages?

keeping my fingers crossed here as well.

That package is the 2.4 kernel modules. You need to install the 2.6 kernel modules which can be found here:

/extra/linux-2.6.17.13/kernel-modules-2.6.17.13-i486-1.tgz

That is very likely to solve the problem (provided you still have that 'options' line in modprobe.conf)

Good luck.

Dave

wakeboarder3780 · 11-21-2006, 09:55 AM

Ok, I kind of understand what was going on there. I uninstalled the 2.4 modules and installed the 2.6 modules. Upon boot up I saw for a fleeting second something about Synaptics, which is somewhat hopeful. When I type lsmod now, I get tons of modules one of which is psmouse, which should be a good thing.. Now the touchpad still doesnt work, but I will post the output of lsmod so you guys can perhaps take a peek at it.

lsmod:

Code:

Module                  Size  Used by
snd_seq_dummy           2820  0 
snd_seq_oss            28928  0 
snd_seq_midi_event      5888  1 snd_seq_oss
snd_seq                43984  5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_seq_device          6284  3 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq
snd_pcm_oss            38048  0 
snd_mixer_oss          15616  1 snd_pcm_oss
ipv6                  223584  10 
sg                     26524  0 
capability              3336  0 
commoncap               5376  1 capability
lp                      9800  0 
parport_pc             24132  1 
parport                30024  2 lp,parport_pc
joydev                  8128  0 
pcspkr                  2432  0 
psmouse                34952  0 
3c574_cs               11400  1 
shpchp                 33816  0 
snd_nm256              65824  0 
snd_ac97_codec         86304  1 snd_nm256
snd_ac97_bus            2048  1 snd_ac97_codec
snd_pcm                73736  3 snd_pcm_oss,snd_nm256,snd_ac97_codec
snd_timer              19332  2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
pcmcia                 30116  1 3c574_cs
snd_page_alloc          7560  1 snd_pcm
snd                    43364  9 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_nm256,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm,snd_timer
i2c_piix4               7696  0 
soundcore               7136  1 snd
evdev                   8064  0 
yenta_socket           23436  4 
rsrc_nonstatic         10752  1 yenta_socket
pcmcia_core            34192  4 3c574_cs,pcmcia,yenta_socket,rsrc_nonstatic
intel_agp              19612  1 
agpgart                28080  1 intel_agp
serio_raw               5252  0

Where do I go from here?

xflow7 · 11-21-2006, 10:15 AM

Good. That's progress.

Do you still have the line in modprobe.conf that I mentioned earlier?

What does cat /proc/bus/input/devices say now? It should list the touchpad as a Synaptics or ALPS device.

masonm · 11-21-2006, 12:08 PM

Have you compiled your kernel with the synaptics touchpad patch? (maybe I missed that in the thread)

wakeboarder3780 · 11-21-2006, 12:18 PM

Indeed it does include information regarding the Synaptics touchapad

cat /proc/bus/input/devices:

Code:

I: Bus=0011 Vendor=0001 Product=0001 Version=ab41
N: Name="AT Translated Set 2 keyboard"
P: Phys=isa0060/serio0/input0
S: Sysfs=/class/input/input0
H: Handlers=kbd event0 
B: EV=120013
B: KEY=4 2000000 3802078 f840d001 f2ffffdf ffefffff ffffffff fffffffe
B: MSC=10
B: LED=7

I: Bus=0010 Vendor=001f Product=0001 Version=0100
N: Name="PC Speaker"
P: Phys=isa0061/input0
S: Sysfs=/class/input/input1
H: Handlers=kbd event1 
B: EV=40001
B: SND=6

I: Bus=0011 Vendor=0002 Product=0007 Version=0000
N: Name="SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad"
P: Phys=isa0060/serio1/input0
S: Sysfs=/class/input/input2
H: Handlers=mouse0 event2 
B: EV=b
B: KEY=6420 0 70000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
B: ABS=11000003

As far as compiling a Synaptics patch in my kernel.. Im not quite sure what you are talking about, but I guess I could dive into the kernel and see if I could find that option. If you could provide its whereabouts within the kernel this may be helpful to me.

Thanks again,
Russ

Spinlock · 11-21-2006, 12:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by marsm

I'm no expert in configuring X, which is why I usually do a quick boot with Knoppix or Ubuntu (are there any LiveCDs with better hardware detection out there?).

Slax!

I don't know about better hardware detection (although, I've never run into a problem), but I know that it is
A) lightning fast
B) much smaller than either Knoppix or Ubuntu
C) Slackware!

wakeboarder3780 · 11-21-2006, 01:22 PM

I did state earlier that I have no cd-rom drive to use a cd with. If you are confused about how I even instlled slackware in the first place, refer to earlier post.

jong357 · 11-21-2006, 06:07 PM

What does your Xorg.log say now? That'll be the place to look for hints as to what's hapening.

cwwilson721 · 11-21-2006, 06:25 PM

As I stated earlier, just get the driver from here.

Read the TROUBLESHOOTING.TXT

And it will work.

wakeboarder3780 · 11-22-2006, 10:31 AM

um.. I'm a bit baffled. I ran startx to get a new up to date Xorg.log file, and then my touchpad was working! Although I'm happy it's working I could have swore I tried it earlier and it didn't.. This was before I tried getting that driver from the telia website listed above. But thank you for including the post (twice even, sorry) I wish I had a more definitive answer as to what happened, but I cant really complain as to now I can do my programming homework easily by just bringing the laptop home instead of my monster case.

A huge thank you goes out to everyone that contributed to this post. Especially those who kept posting, thanks for not giving up. Hope it keeps working consistently.