erratic behavior on HP touchpad

pordan30 · #1 23rd January 2011, 10:43 AM

I'm fairly new to Linux, so perhaps there is an obvious solution to this problem; however, I can't find one. I have an HP Pavilion dm4-1160 notebook. I had no problems installing Fedora 14, setting up wireless, and so forth. However, the touchpad is behaving erratically and won't "right click." For instance, holding the "left click" button and dragging across the touchpad causes the cursor to shake across the screen. Has anyone else had problems like this? If so, how did you solve the problem?

nullrulez · #2 23rd January 2011, 11:24 AM

You should go to System->Preferences->Mouse->Touchpad to enable click!
HTH!

pordan30 · #3 23rd January 2011, 11:29 AM

Well, that was the first problem. But my first thought was to look in system preferences, because where else would such an option be?

In any case, the problem is: (a) "right click" doesn't work; (b) holding a touchpad button and dragging across the touchpad causes the cursor to move erratically across the screen. I downloaded and installed the appropriate drivers, but no luck! If I had to guess, the second problem is probably caused by the touchpad not having separate buttons for clicking; rather, it's a solid piece of plastic. Presumably, where the touchpad is being pressed is normally interpreted as a click or movement. But not here.

firefexx · #4 24th January 2011, 09:12 PM

Hi, I'm working on an equal problem. I found useful things on the manpages from synaptics and synclient.

Double Tab was right click before I change something. Try Double Tab!
I just typed "synclient RBCornerButton=3" and now I can rightclick when I tab in the right bottom corner. Try it!

But there are many options. I have to play with the settings to find these which are useful.

EDIT: I get a question, too: On which file takes synclient affekt? I need the config file but can't determine it.

EDIT2: It seems that synclient is only for temporary changes. After reboot the touchpad behavior is recessed. But the options are permanently if you edit the /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-synaptics.conf

bogatron · #5 31st January 2011, 08:20 PM

Try tapping the right-click section of the pad with your thumb - not actually clicking it though, that does nothing, but when I 'pop' it with my thumb, the right-click context menu appears.

firefexx · #6 4th February 2011, 11:15 AM

What's the difference between "tap" and "pop"?

bogatron · #7 4th February 2011, 03:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by firefexx

What's the difference between "tap" and "pop"?

How many forgwats fit in a chroomden?

I see a tap as using a fingertip and a pop using the side of a thumb, ymmv.

firefexx · #8 5th February 2011, 10:40 AM

Ok, thanks..

But I don't understand your first sentence. English isn't my native language and the words "forgwats" and "chroomden" aren't in my dictionary.

IHeart SymLinks · #9 26th May 2011, 06:12 PM

I have a DM4 and the touchpad doesn't work for me either.

I fixed the backlight not coming up in Power Settings after I temporarily got the screen up by closing and opening the lid (I went there to make it so it didn't suspend the laptop when I closed it and changed the brightness and clicked "Make default", I don't get backlight on the boot screen, but that's not too much a big deal).

Wifi didn't work when I booted the Live CD but is working off the install on my hard drive.

I cannot click at all with the touchpad (Left or right), I have a mouse plugged in. I think what HP was doing with the touchpad was they made it so you could use the space where the left/right mouse click buttons are to navigate, if you move along the right click area in Windows it acts like the rest of the touchpad unless you click it. If you move anywhere on the touchpad it acts the same and doesn't click.

I have Fedora 13 64 Bit installed, I am doing a yum update now and am going to try upgrading to Fedora 14 or 15 once this is done.