[gentoo-user] Touchpad in "absolute" mode

[gentoo-user] Touchpad in "absolute" mode

[Alan McKinnon]

Hi all,

I haven't seen this one before. My touchpad mouse works normally, until 
I lift my finger and place it somewhere else. Normally, the pointer 
would stay where it is and only move when my finger moves. What happens 
now is my I touch the pad, the pointer moves to a point on the screen 
corresponding to where I touch the pad. Touch pad on left edge, pointer 
moves to left edge of screen, then reacts normally to finger moving 
again. The "stick mouse" works fine.

I get the same result without an xorg.conf, just letting xorg figure 
stuff out for itself.

xorg-server-1.4.0.90
USE=dri hal input_devices_evdev input_devices_keyboard 
input_devices_mouse input_devices_synaptics input_devices_vmmouse 
kdrive sdl video_cards_i810 video_cards_vesa video_cards_vga 
video_cards_vmware xorg

x11-drivers/synaptics-0.14.6-r1

xorg.conf (irrelavant sections snipped)
Section "ServerLayout"
        Identifier     "X.org Configured"
        Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
        InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
        InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier  "Mouse0"
        Driver      "mouse"
        Option      "Protocol" "auto"
        Option      "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
        Option      "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection


-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com
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gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] Touchpad in "absolute" mode

[Sascha Hlusiak]

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Am Mittwoch 16 Januar 2008 18:13:22 schrieb Alan McKinnon:
> Hi all,
>
> I haven't seen this one before. My touchpad mouse works normally, until
> I lift my finger and place it somewhere else. Normally, the pointer
> would stay where it is and only move when my finger moves. What happens
> now is my I touch the pad, the pointer moves to a point on the screen
> corresponding to where I touch the pad. Touch pad on left edge, pointer
> moves to left edge of screen, then reacts normally to finger moving
> again. The "stick mouse" works fine.
>
> I get the same result without an xorg.conf, just letting xorg figure
> stuff out for itself.
Stuff is figured out itself now anyway. :-S

You have hal-0.5.10 installed and compiled xorg-server with hal. Now hal will 
scan the attached devices and hotplug available mice. The touchpad is 
recognized as a mouse and the "evdev" driver is loaded with uses absolute 
mode since the device emits absolute coordinates. 
These devices are even added when you already have a mouse input device in the 
xorg.conf, thus giving you a lot of mice that use the same data (some guys 
report double clicks on single clicks, keymaps changed, the touchpad does not 
work right anymore). 

Put
	Option "AutoAddDevices" "false"
in the Section Serverflags and xorg will stop to hotplug mice. 
Or add a custom policy file in /etc/hal/fdi/policy/ to add the touchpad with 
the synaptics driver instead of evdev.

Sascha

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Re: [gentoo-user] Touchpad in "absolute" mode

[Alan McKinnon]

On Thursday 17 January 2008, Sascha Hlusiak wrote:
> Am Mittwoch 16 Januar 2008 18:13:22 schrieb Alan McKinnon:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I haven't seen this one before. My touchpad mouse works normally,
> > until I lift my finger and place it somewhere else. Normally, the
> > pointer would stay where it is and only move when my finger moves.
> > What happens now is my I touch the pad, the pointer moves to a
> > point on the screen corresponding to where I touch the pad. Touch
> > pad on left edge, pointer moves to left edge of screen, then reacts
> > normally to finger moving again. The "stick mouse" works fine.
> >
> > I get the same result without an xorg.conf, just letting xorg
> > figure stuff out for itself.
>
> Stuff is figured out itself now anyway. :-S
>
> You have hal-0.5.10 installed and compiled xorg-server with hal. Now
> hal will scan the attached devices and hotplug available mice. The
> touchpad is recognized as a mouse and the "evdev" driver is loaded
> with uses absolute mode since the device emits absolute coordinates.
> These devices are even added when you already have a mouse input
> device in the xorg.conf, thus giving you a lot of mice that use the
> same data (some guys report double clicks on single clicks, keymaps
> changed, the touchpad does not work right anymore).
>
> Put
> 	Option "AutoAddDevices" "false"

Excellent! thanks. That fixed the problem, and also solved erratic 
double-click behaviour I was getting in Konqueror as well

alan




> in the Section Serverflags and xorg will stop to hotplug mice.
> Or add a custom policy file in /etc/hal/fdi/policy/ to add the
> touchpad with the synaptics driver instead of evdev.
>
> Sascha



-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com
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