Friday, January 14, 2011

Touchpad Fixed!

After a bit of research and trial and error I've gotten the touchpad (really its a clickpad) working correctly. Depending on which forums you search or directions you follow there are a couple of ways to 'fix' the touchpad.

The first is to change the driver from a touchpad to psmouse. This will essentially make the touch act like an older ps/2 mouse. Meaning no native multi-touch support. It will remove the touchpad option from System->Preferences->Mouse. I tried this and did not like it as
I had issues with adjusting the sensitivity and speed of the pad and cursor. Also I love the two-finger scrolling option. I was going to include the links to make the touchpad work
this way but I've lost them and honestly don't feel like finding
them again as I think this is the inferior option. The only upside to using this solution is that you will get a true right click back. Meaning if you click the lower right button it will register and
use it.

The better option (in my opinion), is to follow the instructions from this Bug report: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/308191/+index?comments=all . In the interest of saving time I'll make an easy to follow list of instructions below.

Directions to Install:

One of the dependencies for this package is dkms. I prefer to use the terminal and apt-get to manage packages. I've included both methods for compatibility with newer users or those that like the GUI method better.

1) "sudo apt-get install dkms"
Alternate: System->Administration->Synaptic Package Manager
Now search for dkms. Mark the package for installation. Now click the check at the top toolbar to apply the changes.




2) "cd ~; cd Downloads; sudo dpkg -i synaptics-dkms_1.1.1_all.deb" - In this step replace Downloads with the location you saved the synaptics package to.for dkms, mark the package for installation and click the check mark in the top toolbar to apply changes.

Alternate: Using file browser find the package you downloaded. Right click on it and choose 'Ubuntu Software Center'. From there you can install the package.
3) Now reboot and enjoy. The touchpad will no longer go haywire when your palm touches it, or more than one touch at time. Furthermore now you can enable the two finger scrolling.

To Enable Two Finger Scrolling
1) System->Preferences->Mouse

2) Select the touchpad tab
3) Turn on two finger scrolling. The horizontal option will enable you to side scroll with two fingers just like you do vertically.


Another problem solved. It should be noted that with my preferred method the right click will not work. In order to right click with the touchpad you simply tap with two fingers at one time. Similar to a tap to click but with two fingers. Its not a perfect solution but it makes the touchpad usable at least.

14 comments:

  1. Thanks a lot. Worked like a charm on my Envy 14 with Linux Mint :-)

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  2. Seriously helped me as well. Right click takes some getting used to, but it becomes natural quickly.

    Thx! = ]

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  3. Seems to work well on an HP dv3 1075US with a Synaptics touchpad.

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  4. I am running Natty 64 bit version on my Envy 14. I get the following error when I try to install the deb package:

    Error! Bad return status for module build on kernel: 2.6.38-8-generic (x86_64)
    Consult the make.log in the build directory
    /var/lib/dkms/synaptics/1.1.1/build/ for more information.
    0
    0
    ERROR: binary package for synaptics: 1.1.1 not found
    dpkg: error processing synaptics-dkms (--install):
    subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 10
    Errors were encountered while processing:
    synaptics-dkms

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  5. I still have the problem of left-click-and-drop selection, which doesn't work at all. Any hints?

    Thanks in advance,

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    Replies
    1. I had the same issue when o bought my hp envy and updated the windows but i fixed it by following this link :

      http://stonednerds.com/solution-touch-pad-not-working-after-updating-windows-to-8-1/

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  6. same thing. left click and drag (e.g. in order to resize a window or move a map in googlemaps) doesnt work at all.

    all other features described here (2 fingers scrolling and right click with 2 fingers) were working out of the box in Ubuntu 11.04

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  7. If annyone should come over this post now. 3. may 2012

    With ubuntu 12.04 this will work to get your touchpads softbuttons to map right:

    xinput set-prop "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad" "Synaptics Soft Button Areas" 3872 5671 3984 7694 3272 3871 3984 7694

    Add this command to the startup.
    I didnt figure this our, but cant find the forum I found it for credds : /

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  8. If you're having additional problems with double-click or click-and-drag please check this tutorial. There's a kernel bug.

    http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel.input/38497

    http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?p=5276920&posted=1#post5276920

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  9. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  10. I havent any word to appreciate this post.....Really i am impressed from this post....the person who create this post it was a great human..thanks for shared this with us.

    123 HP Envy 5642 Install

    ReplyDelete
  11. This is a known hardware issue with HP Envy touchpads. They are very jittery because of improper grounding. The solution for me (on Windows 10) was to remove all ground connections from the touchpad, including ground tape and insulating the mouse button from the grounded touch bar.

    ReplyDelete