Ubuntu – How to use touch-gesture-recognition-stack on multitouch-enabled touchpads

multi-touchsynapticstouchpad

I currently have a Synaptics touchpad with only few classic multitouch features (2 finger scroll, right click). By installing the respective testing suite, I saw that it doesn't accept my touchpad as input device. I want to buy a newer notebook and would like to benefit of touch-related features (window management, swipe, pinch, rotate).

Does the touch-framework only work on touchscreens or also on touchpads? What requirements should I take into account when choosing a new notebook?

Best Answer

From what I can find, it seems like support currently exists in the gesture-recognition framework, but there is a kernel bug that is blocking it from working with Synaptics devices. I found a bug report for it that has a status of "Fix Committed." It seems to indicate that it supports devices that are not explicitly multi-touch.

However, this bug report for an issue with the kernel has been triaged. There is discussion up to today, and it seems like fixes have been committed to the natty git kernel repo that may provide the support you require.

You could try compiling the kernel from this (presumably very unstable) natty kernel snapshot: git://kernel.ubuntu.com/cndougla/ubuntu-natty.git

Or just watch the kernel bug report over the next few weeks and try to upgrade to that kernel version ASAP.

Also, for what it's worth, the kernel issue prevents the framework from working with a Synaptics touchpad, but you might be able to enable multitouch gestures using X11 by following this guide.

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – How to get multitouch enabled on the Sentelic touchpad (msi x350 notebook)

There is an open bug report for this issue on Launchpad. While support for this touchpad has improved quite a bit since I bought my MSI X-Series notebook, it's obviously incomplete, as you noticed. From what I've gathered in that bug report, Sentelic released an open source Linux driver for the touchpad awhile ago, which has been partially merged into the Linux kernel. Unfortunately, from comment 71 of the bug report, it sounds like Sentelic has also raised patent concerns, which seem to be blocking the current development of the open source driver.

The ultimate goal, at least from what I've read on the mailing list, is to hand off the control of scrolling (and multi-touch?) to the Synaptics driver. And to quote the bug report one more time, "To fix this bug properly, Sentelic’s source for absolute positioning needs to be re-added to the driver."

Right now, I don't know of anyone actively working on this, but I'm in the same boat as you, and I would love to have multi-touch (or at least usable edge-scrolling) working on my laptop. Maybe we should start bribing people. :)

Ubuntu – Help trying to get two-finger scrolling to work on Asus UL80VT

To get your synclient settings to stick you can add them to xorg.conf. I did this recently for my macbook pro in 12.10 and it works pretty well.

You can also specify a separate configuration file in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ file to keep things neater. Here's a step by step:

Create /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d (if it doesn't already exist)

sudo mkdir /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d
Create and edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-synaptics.conf

gksudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-synaptics.conf

Make it look like the following:

#Sample /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-synaptics.conf
Section "InputClass"
  Identifier "touchpad catchall"
  Driver "synaptics"
  MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
  MatchIsTouchpad "true"
  Option  "SHMConfig"           "true"
  Option  "TapButton1"          "1"
  Option  "TapButton2"          "2"
  Option  "TapButton3"          "3"
EndSection

Save and logout/login again. If the xserver fails to load and you get forced into low graphics mode then edit the file again and comment everything out, or mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-synaptics.conf ~/10-synaptics.conf.backup and reload again to get back to normal.

For posterity, my current setup for my macbook pro 2012 13" is as follows (warning, I like my touchpad rather sensitive). Try any of these options using synclient before putting them into xorg.conf!

Section "InputClass"
      Identifier "touchpad catchall"
      Driver "synaptics"
      MatchIsTouchpad "on"
      MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
      MatchProduct "bcm5974"
      MatchIsTouchpad "true"
      Option  "SHMConfig"           "true"
      Option  "FastTaps"            "1"
      Option  "MaxDoubleTapTime"    "100"
      Option  "BottomEdge"          "6000"
      Option  "FingerLow"           "60"
      Option  "FingerHigh"          "90"
      Option         "ClickFinger3" "2"
#      Option         "FingerLow"             "30"
#      Option         "FingerHigh"            "80"
      Option         "VertTwoFingerScroll" "1"
      Option         "HorizTwoFingerScroll" "1"
      Option         "VertScrollDelta" "100"
      Option         "HorizScrollDelta" "100"
      Option         "MultiFingerButton" "2"
      #Option         "TapButton1" "1"
      Option         "TapButton2" "3"
      Option         "TapButton3" "2"
      Option         "MinSpeed" "1"
      Option         "MaxSpeed" "2"
      Option         "AccelFactor" "0.01"
#      Option         "AreaBottomEdge" "5000"
EndSection

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – How to get multitouch enabled on the Sentelic touchpad (msi x350 notebook)

Ubuntu – Help trying to get two-finger scrolling to work on Asus UL80VT

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