Arch Linux

somekool

Member

Registered: 2008-08-27

Posts: 25

inconsistent touchpad detection

Hello there,

I have this laptop for 4 months now. pretty happy with it and ArchLinux.
it is a NEC HZ550, everything runs smootly.
one single problem

the touchpad sometimes does not work. I need to reboot the computer several times and eventually, it's working

when it's working, It gets detected right away and I can use it in sddm
when it does not work, the cursor is not even present, but if I login, the cursor will appear but It won't move.

everytime I boot, I swipe my finger on my touchpad while grub turns GFX
I have a feeling it helps, but there is nothing scientific about it.

I tried a lot of different things playing with the config a few months ago, but I forgot the details
I would need to dig back to remember

today, I played with `hwinfo`

I logged on my system and run `sudo hwinfo > file` twice while my touchpad was not working to be able to compare them
and one more time while the touchpad was working.

I had a feeling devices might not be detected in the same order and this could be causing the trouble.

the output is quite long and doing simple diffs, its not easy to grasp what is going on.
but I found my touch device

I used ruby to compare the unique list of IDs

data = `grep Unique.ID ~/*.log`.split(/\n/).map {|l| l.split(/\.log:/)}.group_by { |x| x.first }; nil
data.each {|k,v| data[k] = v.map { |l| l.last } }; nil

2.1.5 :029 > data.each {|k,v| puts [k, Digest::SHA256.hexdigest(v.sort.join)]}
/home/mathieu/brokentouch.hwinfo.2
8c033eb0962a516aa2e11e8e02743444d273236fabb1899dc19cc3e29ec88f28
/home/mathieu/brokentouch.hwinfo
101da4b418fb66f992be5f9625a941436a5f6260cf27998a59d753b7d06c121d
/home/mathieu/touchpadworking.hwinfo
53959336c59f025e633bbccef4d6b0e4c1fda9fec679545a93f889d5bce36a0b


2.1.5 :035 > pp data.map {|k,v| [k, data.first.last.sort - v.sort, v.sort - data.first.last.sort]}; nil 
[["/home/mathieu/brokentouch.hwinfo.2", [], []],
 ["/home/mathieu/brokentouch.hwinfo",
  ["  Unique ID: 2UT6.l148Ao7nQK1",
   "  Unique ID: KRJj.19grXQ5EwyA",
   "  Unique ID: Uc5H.9gJFXHc4deF",
   "  Unique ID: k4bc.2DFUsyrieMD",
   "  Unique ID: pBe4.xYNhIwdOaa6",
   "  Unique ID: uIhY.oLWCeziExdF"],
  ["  Unique ID: 7bWa.l148Ao7nQK1",
   "  Unique ID: ADDn.19grXQ5EwyA",
   "  Unique ID: Zj8l.9gJFXHc4deF",
   "  Unique ID: k4bc.oLWCeziExdF",
   "  Unique ID: pBe4.2DFUsyrieMD",
   "  Unique ID: uIhY.xYNhIwdOaa6"]],
 ["/home/mathieu/touchpadworking.hwinfo",
  ["  Unique ID: YYjj.+49ps10DtUF"],
  ["  Unique ID: AH6Q.9uGL5DibWf5",
   "  Unique ID: nLyy.+49ps10DtUF",
   "  Unique ID: rdCR.DziBbWO85o5"]]]
 => nil 
2.1.5 :036 > 

I'm not too sure what I could be doing...

44: PS/2 00.0: 10500 PS/2 Mouse
  [Created at input.249]
  Unique ID: AH6Q.9uGL5DibWf5
  Hardware Class: mouse
  Model: "ETPS/2 Elantech Touchpad"
  Vendor: 0x0002 
  Device: 0x000e "ETPS/2 Elantech Touchpad"
  Compatible to: int 0x0210 0x0001
  Device File: /dev/input/mice (/dev/input/mouse0)
  Device Files: /dev/input/mice, /dev/input/mouse0, /dev/input/event10, /dev/input/by-path/platform-i8042-serio-1-event-mouse, /dev/input/by-path/platform-i8042-serio-1-mouse
  Device Number: char 13:63 (char 13:32)
  Driver Info #0:
    Buttons: 1
    Wheels: 0
    XFree86 Protocol: explorerps/2
    GPM Protocol: exps2
  Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown
....

Lone_Wolf

Administrator

From: Netherlands, Europe

Registered: 2005-10-04

Posts: 15,167

Re: inconsistent touchpad detection

for clarity : you do have xf86-input-synaptics installed ?

Looking at your posts, it seems that touchpad uses PS/2 to connect.
This news item might be relevant :   https://www.archlinux.org/news/linux-31 … w-modular/

---

Disliking systemd intensely, but not satisfied with alternatives so focusing on taming systemd.

clean chroot building not flexible enough ?
Try clean chroot manager by graysky

somekool

Member

Registered: 2008-08-27

Posts: 25

Re: inconsistent touchpad detection

thanks for taking a look at my post...

I do,

bash$ pacman -Ss synaptic
extra/xf86-input-synaptics 1.8.2-2 (xorg-drivers xorg) [installed]
    Synaptics driver for notebook touchpads
community/libsynaptics 0.14.6c-6
    Library for accessing synaptics touchpads
bash$