XFree86/Xorg TouchPad Drivers for Linux Laptops and Notebooks (Old)

Here you may find an overview of touchpad drivers for X11 and GPM working with Linux laptops and notebooks.

Synaptics Touchpad Driver

The Synaptics TouchPad driver has been created by Stefan Gmeiner is now maintained by Peter Osterlund. Latest improvement you may get via GIT: git-clone git://anongit.freedesktop.org/git/xorg/driver/xf86-input-synaptics/. The touchpad driver has the following functions (some functions require features from the touchpad that must be present, multifinger taps for example):

• Movement with adjustable, non-linear acceleration and speed (Options: MinSpeed, MaxSpeed, AccelFactor)
• Button events through short touching of the touchpad (Options: MaxTapTime, MaxTapMove)
• Double-Button events through double short touching of the touchpad
• Dragging through short touching and holding down the finger on the touchpad
• Middle and right button events on the upper and lower corner of the touchpad (Option: Edges)
• Scrolling (button four and five events) through moving the finger on the right side of the touchpad (Options: Edges, VertScrollDelta)
• The up/down button sends button four/five events
• Adjustable finger detection (Option: Finger)
• Ext Mouse repeater support - Alpha! (Option: Repeater)
• Multifinger taps: two finger for middle button and three finger for right button events
• Online configuration through short-memory (in development) (Option: SHMConfig)

HOWTOs

How to Detect a Synaptics Touchpad

To verify that you have a Synaptics touchpad you may do cat /proc/bus/input/devices:

...
I: Bus=0011 Vendor=0002 Product=0007 Version=0000
N: Name="SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad"
P: Phys=isa0060/serio1/input0
H: Handlers=mouse1 event2
B: EV=b
B: KEY=6420 0 670000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
B: ABS=11000003
...

For Kernels >= 2.6 also you need the psmouse driver loaded in order to correctly use a Synaptics Touchpad. Then dmesg shows e.g.:

...
Synaptics Touchpad, model: 1
 Firmware: 5.9
 Sensor: 37
 new absolute packet format
 Touchpad has extended capability bits
 -> multifinger detection
 -> palm detection
input: SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad on isa0060/serio1
...

Fixing an Erratic or Unresponsive Touchpad, e.g. on a DELL Inspiron 4100

Patrik Simons has written a small HOWTO about fixing an erratic or unresponsive touchpad e.g. on a DELL Inspiron 4100.

Gentoo-Wiki: Synaptics-TouchPad HOWTO

Gentoo-Wiki: Synaptics-TouchPad HOWTO.

Applications

flSynclient

flSynclient is a frontend for configuring the Synaptics touchpad driver. It uses synclient.

Qsynaptics

QSynaptics is a QT based configuration utility for the synaptics touchpad drivers. It uses the synclient/syndaemon tools delivered by the X11 driver, which is from Peter Osterlund.

Synaptiks

synaptiks is a touchpad application for KDE 4. It provides a touchpad configuration module for System Settings, and a service that switches the touchpad off automatically if external mice are plugged in or if the keyboard is active.

MidiPoke

Midipoke is a MIDI controller for Synaptics touchpads on laptops. The X, Y, and Z axes can be mapped to MIDI CC messages or pitch bends.

tpconfig

tpconfig is a package to drive support for the Synaptics TouchPad and ALPS Glidepad/Stickpointer under various flavors of UNIX, although Linux is currently the primary target.

General Purpose Mousemanager - GPM

There is a patched version of GPM to take advantage of the advanced features of the Synaptics touchpad. It provides Linux event device protocol support for GPM.

Elantech Touchpad Driver

Here is the Elantech touchpad driver for Linux.

Toshiba cPAD Driver

Linux Driver for Synaptics cPad, which seems to be used at least with some Toshiba models.

Credits

• Stefan Gmeiner <riddlebox_at_freesurf.ch>
• Peter Osterlund <petero2_at_telia.com>
• Jonas Norling <jonas_at_jomato.se>