[SOLVED]Is there a synclient like tool for Dell touchpads???

jtwdyp · posted: 2014-07-24 01:06

My new Dell Inspiron laptop's touchpad is so sensitive that even the hair on my arm brushing it as I type can change the focus of what I'm typing into... So I'm looking for a way to toggle it on and off as needed. Preferably a command line method.

I like that antiX can use it if the battery dies on my chordless usb mouse, but I'd like to be able to toggle it offline. And synclient doesn't work with it.

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$ synclient TouchpadOff=1
Couldn't find synaptics properties. No synaptics driver loaded?
$

If it matters, I'm using openbox for a gui...

Suggestions anyone?

male · posted: 2014-07-24 13:15

what is his TouchPad?

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grep -B 5 mouse /proc/bus/input/devices

and the

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apt-cache policy xserver-xorg-input-synaptics

jtwdyp · posted: 2014-07-25 15:29

OK is this what you want?

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 ~ 
UnderTree  =-> grep -B 5 mouse /proc/bus/input/devices
I: Bus=0018 Vendor=06cb Product=2985 Version=0100
N: Name="DLL0651:00 06CB:2985"
P: Phys=
S: Sysfs=/devices/pci0000:00/INT33C3:00/i2c-1/i2c-DLL0651:00/0018:06CB:2985.0003/input/input3
U: Uniq=
H: Handlers=mouse1 event3 
 ~ 
UnderTree  =-> apt-cache policy xserver-xorg-input-synaptics
xserver-xorg-input-synaptics:
  Installed: 1.7.3-1+b1
  Candidate: 1.8.0-1
  Version table:
     1.8.0-1 0
        500 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ testing/main i386 Packages
 *** 1.7.3-1+b1 0
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
 ~ 
UnderTree  =->

I ran the above commands without connecting my wireless mouse.

Hope that means something to you... I'm a little puzzled by the"i386 Packages" in the second output though... This rolling antiX (which started life as M11) has always been an 64bit installation.

rokytnji · posted: 2014-07-25 15:46

I'm a little puzzled by the"i386 Packages" in the second output though... This rolling antiX (which started life as M11) has always been an 64bit installation.

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inxi -S

Will elaborate a bit on that statement.

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uname -a

will also.

male · posted: 2014-07-26 14:01

Here is an update or re-install the package xserver-xorg-input-synaptics
helped.

========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://askubuntu.com/questions/496314/dell-trackpad-not-recognized-in-ubuntu-14-04"
linktext was:"http://askubuntu.com/questions/496314/d ... untu-14-04"
====================================

========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://forum.ubuntu-it.org/viewtopic.php?p=4604218"
linktext was:"http://forum.ubuntu-it.org/viewtopic.php?p=4604218"
====================================

You should use the latest software.
Also we do not know your kernel version, as Rok noticed.

jtwdyp · posted: 2014-07-29 18:22

rokytnji wrote:
I'm a little puzzled by the"i386 Packages" in the second output though... This rolling antiX (which started life as M11) has always been an 64bit installation.
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inxi -S
Will elaborate a bit on that statement.
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uname -a
will also.

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inxi -S
System:    Host 2012-antix-lap-7 Kernel 3.14-1-amd64 x86_64 (64 bit) Distro antiX-M11-686 Jayaben Desai 01 May 2011

uname -a
Linux 2012-antix-lap-7 3.14-1-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.14.12-1 (2014-07-11) x86_64 GNU/Linux

male wrote:Here is an update or re-install the package xserver-xorg-input-synaptics helped.

========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://askubuntu.com/questions/496314/dell-trackpad-not-recognized-in-ubuntu-14-04"
linktext was:"http://askubuntu.com/questions/496314/d ... untu-14-04"
====================================

========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://forum.ubuntu-it.org/viewtopic.php?p=4604218"
linktext was:"http://forum.ubuntu-it.org/viewtopic.php?p=4604218"
====================================

You should use the latest software.

I followed the method described in the first link (sans sudo bull) from a root shell:

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apt-get --purge autoremove xserver-xorg-input-synaptics && apt-get install xserver-xorg-input-synaptics

Then I rebooted, but I still get the same error:

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synclient TouchpadOff=1
Couldn't find synaptics properties. No synaptics driver loaded?

As to that 2nd link, it wasn't in English so I couldn't make much sense of it...

Also we do not know your kernel version, as Rok noticed.

Well the output of the commands"Rok" suggested seem to agree with the way I'd have answered that question by telling you I was booting with"vmlinuz-3.14-1-amd64"

I'm not at all sure that synclient (or xserver-xorg-input-synaptics itself) is compatible with the"Dell" touchpad. But something is. I just want to know how to turn the durned thing off... I've checked the bios settings and there isn't any option to disable it there... {:sigh:}

jtwdyp · posted: 2014-08-07 22:58

Update:
Still have no idea how to turn the {expletive deleted} NON-synaptic touchpad off.

But I found a purely mechanical solution: A piece of thin stiff plastic just large enough to completely cover the touchpad, held down with a 10x12CM piece of"Tegaderm Film"keeps the touchpad from detecting any inadvertent touch. But is reasonably easy to peel off if my cordless mouse should stop working...

It does take a little coordination to apply the Tegaderm Film without any wrinkles so that it doesn't bug me. But the method does work.

BitJam · posted: 2014-08-08 09:22

If you just want to disable the touchpad, there are several solutions
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://askubuntu.com/questions/65951/how-to-disable-the-touchpad"
linktext was:"here"
====================================
that don't depend on synclient or similar tools. One really neat solution is to install the touchpad-indicator package which will give you a way of turning the touchpad on and off via a system tray applet. But if your touchpad is disabled when the mouse dies then you might have difficulty getting to the applet. Another solution works via the command line using the xinput command. You can then bind a simple toggle script to a Fn + F<whatever> key. I use xbindkeys to associate a script with a certain key. I use xev to find out what a key or key combination is called.

jtwdyp · posted: 2014-08-08 12:48

BitJam wrote:If you just want to disable the touchpad, there are several solutions
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"http://askubuntu.com/questions/65951/how-to-disable-the-touchpad"
linktext was:"here"
====================================
that don't depend on synclient or similar tools. One really neat solution is to install the touchpad-indicator package which will give you a way of turning the touchpad on and off via a system tray applet. But if your touchpad is disabled when the mouse dies then you might have difficulty getting to the applet. Another solution works via the command line using the xinput command. You can then bind a simple toggle script to a Fn + F<whatever> key. I use xbindkeys to associate a script with a certain key. I use xev to find out what a key or key combination is called.

Thanks. BitJam... The xinput solution is for me. Since I use pure openbox as my gui of choice, {OK I also load the"lxpanel"} I manually edit my own keybindings. But I've already got scripts for this based on synclient that were not hard to edit to reflect the xinput commands. Since one of them is called in my ~/.xinitrc I only have to think about it if I want to turn it back on...

As it happens I was just logging in to explain about the fix I found via the Mageia Linux Forum that also works here when I read your post which included the same xinput method.

I don't know why my initial web search on this failed to find the links Somebody on the Mageia Forum said took 3 seconds on Google. {Though I would have been using Startpage by default ever since Scroogle died...} But the solution there works here with the only diff being that here I use apt-get instead of urpmi to get the xinput package...

Then since:

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 xinput list
⎡ Virtual core pointer                          id=2    [master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer                id=4    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Logitech USB Receiver                     id=10   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Logitech USB Receiver                     id=11   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ DLL0651:00 06CB:2985                      id=13   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                         id=3    [master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard               id=5    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                              id=6    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Video Bus                                 id=7    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                              id=8    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Sleep Button                              id=9    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Integrated_Webcam_HD                      id=12   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard              id=14   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ ACPI Virtual Keyboard Device              id=15   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Dell WMI hotkeys                          id=16   [slave  keyboard (3)]

Identifies my dell touchpad as"id=13", all I need do is to substitute this:

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xinput set-prop 13"Device Enabled" 0

anyplace my existing Synaptic based scripts said:

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synclient TouchpadOff=1

And I'm happy...

As yet there isn't a substitute for"synclient TouchpadOff=2". But then again, since the Dell touchpad is currently only recognized as a generic"mouse" there aren't any advanced touchpad functions to disable anyway... So like I said, I'm happy with this fix.

My thanks to you all for the kindly given help.

BitJam · posted: 2014-08-08 20:28

jtwdyp wrote:As yet there isn't a substitute for"synclient TouchpadOff=2". But then again, since the Dell touchpad is currently only recognized as a generic"mouse" there aren't any advanced touchpad functions to disable anyway... So like I said, I'm happy with this fix.

If that is supposed to turn the touchpad on and off automatically when the mouse is removed, inserted then you might be able to either use a cron job for this or a little script that does polling. A slightly more sophisticated approach would be to use inotify and get triggered when the directory /dev/input/by-id changes. Since that directory is probably populated by udev, you might be able to write a udev rule instead of using inotify.

jtwdyp · posted: 2014-08-09 17:32

BitJam wrote:
jtwdyp wrote:As yet there isn't a substitute for"synclient TouchpadOff=2".
If that is supposed to turn the touchpad on and off automatically when the mouse is removed, inserted --{{snip}}--

No, with a synaptic touchpad, the TouchpadOff value of 2, disables only the fancy scrollwheel and"tapping" functions that would otherwise prevent me from using it to move the mouse pointer to the opposite side of the screen without several hundred undesired click or scroll events getting in my way... in short it then works much like this dell touchpad does currently in either antiX OR Mageia Linux. If I'd want to click on something I'd have to actually use the dedicated buttons (or button areas)...

But this won't matter untill/unless Dell releases the specs, or the devs manage to reverse engineer what would be considered"better" support for the dell touchpad.
In which case, I'd hope they added a way to turn just those advanced touchpad functions back off, in case I need to re-enable my touchpad as a"generic mouse" someday...