Contents
Elantech touchpad support in Lenny
Using the synaptics driver
This is the recommended approach, as practically everything supported works, except for things like finger pressure which the hardware doesn't support.
To use this driver, install a kernel backport from Squeeze (currently at 2.6.32). See our ../Upgrade page for details.
Configuration
Read the synaptics(4) man page and edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf. Here is an example configuration:
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Touchpad"
Driver "synaptics"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mouse0"
Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
Option "VertTwoFingerScroll" "1"
Option "HorizTwoFingerScroll" "1"
Option "TapButton1" "1"
Option "TapButton2" "2"
Option "TapButton3" "3"
EndSection
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen "Default Screen"
InputDevice "Generic Keyboard"
InputDevice "Touchpad"
EndSection
SHMConfig considered harmful
If you find that the touchpad configuration cannot be altered by using synclient, then (and only then) add a line to enable SHMConfig (as per synaptics man page).
(Ref. this blog posting by Matthew Garrett.)
Using the mouse driver or the evdev driver
This is the only option available to you if you decide to stick with the 2.6.26 kernel in Lenny. While using a backported kernel offers many advantages, if you don't want to make such a big change and don't mind missing out on some of the full functionality of the touchpad, read on.
The touchpad is recognised as an Intellimouse PS/2 device. Consequently, it is not recognised by the X.org synaptics driver.
(II) Synaptics touchpad driver version 0.14.6 (1406) Synaptics0 no synaptics event device found (**) Option "Device" "/dev/psaux" (**) Option "HorizEdgeScroll" "1" Query no Synaptics: 6003C8
What works
Two-finger vertical scrolling works, as do two- and three-finger taps (for the middle and right buttons) and, strangely, drags can be started by holding one finger on the pad and tapping with another finger.
What doesn't work
It is not possible to make any specific device configuration, such as horizontal scrolling.
Elantech touchpad support in Squeeze
Using the synaptics driver
Enabled in kernel 2.6.32-4 and later.
The touchpad is recognised by the kernel as an Elantech device (ETPS/2) device and uses the synaptics Xorg driver. See SynapticsTouchpad for details.
GUI assistance
The Mouse and Pointing device settings applets in the GNOME control centre (the latter in gpointing-device-settings) can be used to enable tapping and scrolling graphically. Beware that they can override the global X settings in xorg.conf.
PS/2 in >2.6.32
The validity of this section is dubious. It's not clear that the stated advantages couldn't be overcome by proper configuration of the synaptics driver, and kernel compilation is not something we recommend.
You might want the older behavior for some reasons:
- tapping enabled by default
- better 3-finger-tap right-click support (e.g. for using mouse gestures)
So you have to disable the Elantech drivers from your kernel by recompiling.
In menuconfig you find the entry in
Device Drivers --> Input device support --> Mice --> Elantech PS/2 protocol extension