Acer Aspire 1420p Multit Touch Screen

neutrix · 2010-05-04 09:03:55

Hi all,

I've recently bought an Acer Aspire 1420p notebook computer and set it up using Arch with no problems, other than getting the multitouch of the screen working.

I had trouble using the evdev driver for it as for some reason tapping the screen always moved the mouse to the top left of the screen. Instead, I installed the evtouch driver and patched it to support my screen. This works great, I can single click things and the mouse cursors follows me as I touch the screen.

However, this driver is fairly limited, all I can do is single touch actions which leaves me stuck when it comes to do stuff like right clicking etc, and I would very much like to use the multi-touch capabilities. I have found that most guides to getting multitouch working involve using the evdev driver, which I haven't been able to get working.

My question is what do I need to do to get my screen working with the evdev? And more generally how should I go about multitouch for my laptop? Does anyone have any experience with this?

Thanks in advance for your time.

lagagnon · 2010-05-04 12:50:14

Have you read this?: http://www.lii-enac.fr/en/projects/shareit/linux.html

neutrix · 2010-05-04 17:51:54

Aha! I had seen this site actually, but rather stupidly missed the bit that said my laptop was supported. Looks like I am going to have to install the driver, or wait for kernel 2.6.34.

It appears that it requires compiz to handle the multi touch events. I use KDE and KWin, so do you think this will be a problem? I'll give installing this driver a go in a little while.

Thanks.

neutrix · 2010-05-20 16:39:11

Hi again.

In the end I waited for the kernel 2.6.34 to come out as supposedly it had a driver for my touch screen in it (MosArt RMTP-MA957). I've grabbed the latest kernel from testing and installed it, but I still don't have any correct touchscreen support. When I tap the screen it still moves the cursor to the top left of the screen.

I have built the multitouch programs from the previous posts (multitouchd) and when I run it it picks up my device. However, I get no response from the touch screen at all while it is running.

I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to do next. Does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks.

gborzi · 2010-06-23 11:28:18

Hi neutrix,
I'm the maintainer of the xf86-input-evtouch AUR package. I have it installed in a buttonless tablet and works fine for me. I can do right mouse clicking with the proper configuration. Possibly you have to remove the buttonless patch from my package to get your buttons working.

neutrix · 2010-07-17 00:13:02

Thanks gborzi, but I just figured out how to get the touch screen working with the evdev driver so that the cursor doesn't always jump to the top left. I ended up writing a custom patch for my screen and recompiling evdev with the patch. It seems to be usable now, although multitouch seems to be a bit strange, I'm going to see if I can get to the bottom of it later. Thanks again.

gborzi · 2010-07-17 23:25:38

Just out of curiosity, did you need to calibrate the touchscreen with the modified evdev driver? If so, how do you calibrate? I haven't read anything about calibration in http://lii-enac.fr/en/projects/shareit/xorg.html.

neutrix · 2010-07-18 09:55:08

Actually I didn't, once the patched driver was loaded it worked out of the box. I'm not sure whether the driver auto calibrates or whether I just got lucky though.

guy.brush · 2010-07-18 20:08:43

So everything works fine with the touchscreen now?
Would you upload your patch anywhere?

neutrix · 2010-07-18 22:06:59

Sure, I'm not sure where the best place is to upload to, but it is a relatively tiny patch so I'll just type it up here.

The patch makes the Acer 1420p touch screen work without problems for single touch using the evdev driver, however, for some reason it doesn't appear to work with multitouch yet, even though it creates the multitouch pointers without problem. If anyone else cleverer than me is able to figure out what is going wrong I'd love to hear from you .

I based the patch on the xf86-input-evdev-multitouch package from the AUR, as I wanted all of the multitouch modifications to evdev from ENAC. Here are my patch and new PKGBUILD files. Put both of these in a directory (with correct filenames) and run makepkg to build it.

acer1420p_patch.patch :

*** evdev.c    2010-02-10 13:36:32.000000000 +0000
--- evdev.c    2010-07-16 09:44:47.317750261 +0100
***************
*** 603,608 ****
--- 603,613 ----
      if (ev->code > ABS_MAX)
          return;
  
+     if (ev->code == ABS_RY)
+         ev->code = ABS_X;
+     if (ev->code == ABS_RZ)
+         ev->code = ABS_Y;
+ 
      if (EvdevWheelEmuFilterMotion(pInfo, ev))
          return;

and PKGBUILD :

# Contributor: James Sharam <james.sharam@gmail.com>
pkgname=xf86-input-evdev-multitouch-1420p
pkgver=2.3.1
pkgrel=3
pkgdesc="X.org evdev input driver with 1420p patch (ENAC's multitouch version)"
arch=('i686' 'x86_64')
url="http://lii-enac.fr/en/projects/shareit/xorg.html"
license="GPL"
conflicts=('xf86-input-evdev')
provides=('xf86-input-evdev')
depends=('glibc')
makedepends=('xorg-util-macros')
source=(http://lii-enac.fr/en/projects/shareit/xf86-input-evdev.tar.bz2 acer1420p_patch.patch)
md5sums=('e8e1cfb4ac9f749b6dc4f5f9d61262c4'
     'c1b1a46698e36691709fbc6bcfc308c0')

build() {
    cd ${srcdir}/xf86-input-evdev
    ./autogen.sh --prefix=/usr

    #Apply patches
    patch src/evdev.c $srcdir/acer1420p_patch.patch

    make || return 1
    make DESTDIR=${pkgdir} install
}

If there are any problems or solutions to multitouch issues, please let me know. Thanks.

EDIT: If there are any issues with the checksums, run "makepkg -g" and it'll tell you the checksums for you to replace "md5sums=('e8e1cfb4ac9f749b6dc4f5f9d61262c4' 'c1b1a46698e36691709fbc6bcfc308c0')" with. It should be fairly self explanatory.

Last edited by neutrix (2010-07-18 22:09:03)

Arch Linux

#1 2010-05-04 09:03:55

Acer Aspire 1420p Multit Touch Screen

#2 2010-05-04 12:50:14

Re: Acer Aspire 1420p Multit Touch Screen

#3 2010-05-04 17:51:54

Re: Acer Aspire 1420p Multit Touch Screen

#4 2010-05-20 16:39:11

Re: Acer Aspire 1420p Multit Touch Screen

#5 2010-06-23 11:28:18

Re: Acer Aspire 1420p Multit Touch Screen

#6 2010-07-17 00:13:02

Re: Acer Aspire 1420p Multit Touch Screen

#7 2010-07-17 23:25:38

Re: Acer Aspire 1420p Multit Touch Screen

#8 2010-07-18 09:55:08

Re: Acer Aspire 1420p Multit Touch Screen

#9 2010-07-18 20:08:43

Re: Acer Aspire 1420p Multit Touch Screen

#10 2010-07-18 22:06:59

Re: Acer Aspire 1420p Multit Touch Screen

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