I just bought a Lenovo Ideapad Flex 15 and ripped Windows out of it to put Ubuntu 13.10 on. For other people with Ideapad Flex's, if you have the issue where Ubuntu loads with 0 brightness, try adding:
echo 85 > /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness
before the 'exit 0' line of your /etc/rc.local file.
The only other problem I've noticed is that the touchpad drivers do not load and the touchpad reacts essentially as a simple mouse with left and right click, no scrolling and no multi-touch capabilities. The touchscreen seems to work fine, but I don't know what to really expect from a touchscreen in Ubuntu.
Here is my xinput:
freedom@flex15:~$ xinput list
⎡ Virtual core pointer id=2 [master pointer (3)]
⎜ ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer id=4 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ eGalax Inc. eGalaxTouch EXC7910-1026-13.00.00 id=9 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ PS/2 Generic Mouse id=12 [slave pointer (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard id=3 [master keyboard (2)]
↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard id=5 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Power Button id=6 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Video Bus id=7 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Power Button id=8 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Lenovo EasyCamera id=10 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard id=11 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Ideapad extra buttons id=13 [slave keyboard (3)]
My dmesg info on my touchpad/touchscreen:
freedom@flex15:~$ dmesg | grep -i touch
[ 1.900295] usb 2-1: Product: eGalaxTouch EXC7910-1026-13.00.00
[ 18.021041] psmouse serio1: alps: Unknown ALPS touchpad: E7=73 03 0a, EC=88 b6 06
[ 18.212564] input: eGalax Inc. eGalaxTouch EXC7910-1026-13.00.00 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb2/2-1/2-1:1.0/input/input5
[ 18.212704] hid-multitouch 0003:0EEF:A111.0001: input,hiddev0,hidraw0: USB HID v2.10 Device [eGalax Inc. eGalaxTouch EXC7910-1026-13.00.00] on usb-0000:00:14.0-1/input0
And if I try to use synaptiks for anything I get:
freedom@flex15:~$ synclient -l
Couldn't find synaptics properties. No synaptics driver loaded?
Also if I install synaptiks from the Ubuntu Software Centre, it installs okay but trying to launch synaptiks gives the error that no touchpad is detected.
Obviously Lenovo doesn't offer support unless you use Windows 8, but according to their website the touchpads are either made by Synaptics, Elantech or ALPS. After looking here: Mouse/Touchpad Settings for Samsung Series 9 in Ubuntu 13.04 I found a solution for Elantech touchpads, which I tried but had no effect. It looks like, from dmesg, that I have an ALPS touchpad. Also that the patch was already committed to an earlier kernel. I used these intructions:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2111236&p=12692065#post12692065
with no errors, but I still get the same outputs from dmesg, synclient and xinput. So from what I can gather, the touchpad drivers are not loaded? Or there is a lack of support for this laptop with the current version of Ubuntu. Could anyone advise please? Thank you.
Also
sudo modprobe psmouse
returns absolutely nothing.
The keyboard function to toggle the touchpad on and off works fine.
Update: I tried this guide for 13.04: http://linuxg.net/ubuntu-13-04-touchpad-option-does-not-exist-error-fix/ and it provided a bit of information in the terminal (everything went fine up until dkms autoinstall):
freedom@flex15:/var/lib/dkms/psmouse$ sudo dkms autoinstall
Kernel preparation unnecessary for this kernel. Skipping...
Building module:
cleaning build area....
make KERNELRELEASE=3.11.0-15-generic -C /lib/modules/3.11.0-15-generic/build M=/var/lib/dkms/psmouse/alps-1.3/build/src psmouse.ko....
cleaning build area....
DKMS: build completed.
Error! This module/version combo is already installed for kernel: 3.11.0-15-generic (x86_64)
Then running
sudo rmmod psmouse && modprobe psmouse
disables the touchpad functionality completely and returns
ERROR: could not insert 'psmouse': Operation not permitted
running
sudo modprobe psmouse && rmmod psmouse
returns basic touchpad functionality (movement, left/right click, no scrolling or multitouch) and outputs
libkmod: ERROR ../libkmod/libkmod-module.c:753 kmod_module_remove_module: could not remove 'psmouse': Operation not permitted
Error: could not remove module psmouse: Operation not permitted
All in all nothing has changed except dmesg, but not really:
freedom@flex15:/var/lib/dkms/psmouse$ dmesg | grep -i touch
[ 1.422626] usb 2-1: Product: eGalaxTouch EXC7910-1026-13.00.00
[ 8.683181] psmouse serio1: alps: Unknown ALPS touchpad: E7=73 03 0a, EC=88 b6 06
[ 8.715623] input: eGalax Inc. eGalaxTouch EXC7910-1026-13.00.00 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb2/2-1/2-1:1.0/input/input5
[ 8.715756] hid-multitouch 0003:0EEF:A111.0001: input,hiddev0,hidraw0: USB HID v2.10 Device [eGalax Inc. eGalaxTouch EXC7910-1026-13.00.00] on usb-0000:00:14.0-1/input0
[ 2653.427571] usb 2-1: Product: eGalaxTouch EXC7910-1026-13.00.00
[ 2653.429091] input: eGalax Inc. eGalaxTouch EXC7910-1026-13.00.00 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb2/2-1/2-1:1.0/input/input15
[ 2653.429267] hid-multitouch 0003:0EEF:A111.0002: input,hiddev0,hidraw0: USB HID v2.10 Device [eGalax Inc. eGalaxTouch EXC7910-1026-13.00.00] on usb-0000:00:14.0-1/input0
and I'm still searching for a solution. Thank you very much for the help so far.
Best Answer
Your problem seems to be due to incomplete support for the newer ALPS v7 touchpads used in the Lenovo Flex series. A patch for the psmouse driver was created recently (http://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-input/msg29084.html), and here you can find a DKMS-version of the updated driver: https://github.com/he1per/psmouse-dkms-alpsv7
Try the following, in a terminal:
Then replace the first line of the file install.sh by:
And the modules directory location:
because the modules are stored in
/liband not in/usr/libin ubuntuand save the file. Finally, run:
You'll get an error, but the driver does seem to get installed. After a reboot, dmesg reported:
and the touchpad on my Flex 14 worked as expected.