Synaptics Touchpad Orientation Patch (for netbooks/laptops) - flip X/Y axes

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Synaptics Touchpad Orientation Patch (for netbooks/laptops)
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On many intel based netbooks you can rotate the display sideways using 'xrandr -o normal/inverted/left/right' or 'xrandr -o 0/1/2/3' which is useful for certain things like ebook/comic book readers, calculator emulators (eg see this thread), games etc.

Unfortunately the touchpad doesn't change orientation and is virtually impossible to use with a rotated screen.

There is a patch available (see here) which enables the touchpad orientation to match the xrandr orientation, and this is how to apply it in Fedora (tested on Fedora 14 but should work on 15 too)

Make sure you have main development tools and libraries installed:

sudo yum groupinstall "Development Tools" "Development Libraries"

you will also need these:

sudo yum groupinstall "X Software Development"
sudo yum install libtool xorg-x11-util-macros xorg-x11-server-sdk

I used version 1.4.0 of the synaptics driver since there was a working patch available. Get v1.4.0 of the patch and driver from

http://cc.oulu.fi/~rantalai/synaptics/ (direct download)
http://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/dri...put-synaptics/ (Direct Download)

(alternative download here and here)

Now build the patched driver

tar xvf  xf86-input-synaptics-1.4.0.tar.bz2
cd  xf86-input-synaptics-1.4.0
patch  -p1 <  ..full path to patch file..
./autogen.sh
./configure --prefix=/usr
make
sudo make install

now reboot, check your synclient verison is 1.4.0 with 'synclient -V'.

'Orientation' parameter should appear in the list when you type 'synclient'

now change screen and touchpad orientation together using something like

xrandr -o 3
synclient Orientation=3

and return to normal with

xrandr -o 0
synclient Orientation=0

You can alias these commands or assign them to a hotkey in gnome keyboard shortcuts.

Don't forget to enable touchpad tapping in the Gnome Mouse menu if required (under preferences - > mouse -> touchpad)

(you should hide the gnome toolbar before rotating (eg add hide buttons to it by right clicking -> properties)

---------- Post added at 06:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:46 PM ----------