Damn Small Linux - Not!

Juanito · Joined: 11 Sep 2006 Posts: 88 Location: Dubai, U.A.E.

I have DSL-N RC4 running from a USB-HDD on a Dell Latitude D400. This laptop comes with an Alps GlidePoint touch pad and stick combination.

I have been trying to get the touchpad and the stick working under XFree86 - so far only the touchpad works reliably - occasionally the stick works but there does not seem to be a pattern to this. Note that both the touchpad and stick work under DSL 3.0.1. My final aim is to be able to disable the touchpad (which I don't like) and use only the stick.

Since the stick would not work using XFree86.dsl and my XF86Config-4 file from DSL 3.0.1 or by exiting and using xsetup.sh, I tried the following:

1. modprobe evdev - apparently required to use the synaptics driver with XFree86.
2. cat /proc/bus/input/devices

I: Bus=0011 Vendor=0002 Product=0008 Version=0000

N: Name="PS/2 Mouse"

P: Phys=isa0060/serio1/input1

H: Handlers=mouse0 event1

B: EV=7

B: KEY=70000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

B: REL=3

I: Bus=0011 Vendor=0002 Product=0008 Version=6337

N: Name="AlpsPS/2 ALPS GlidePoint"

P: Phys=isa0060/serio1/input0

H: Handlers=mouse1 event2

B: EV=f

B: KEY=420 0 70000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

B: REL=3

B: ABS=1000003

I presume mouse0 is the stick and mouse1 is the touchpad

3. apt-get install xfree86-driver-synaptics - this copies the driver "synaptics_drv.o" to /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/input.

4. Changed the relevant sections of XF86Config-4 to read as follows:

Section "ServerLayout"
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Mouse1" "AlwaysCore"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "synaptics"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "PS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "1"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse1"
Driver "synaptics"
Option "SHMConfig" "1"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "1"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/event2"
Option "Protocol" "event"
Option "LeftEdge" "120"
Option "RightEdge" "830"
Option etc, etc
Option "TouchpadOff" "2"
Option "GuestMouseOff" "0"
EndSection

5. Restarted XFree86 and "syndaemon -d" then "synclient -l" which gives a listing of all of the (many) touchpad settings. Hence I assume XFree86 and the synaptics driver seem to be working together.

According to Google, Linux 2.6.11 and above are patched for the Alps GlidePoint - it does state however that CONFIG_INPUT_EVDEV and CONFIG_MOUSE_PS2 have to be set at the time of compiling the kernel or, alternatively, the psmouse and evdev modules have to be loaded.

Whilst I can modprobe evdev, I cannot modprobe psmouse - has psmouse been compiled into the RC4 kernel?

I have tried many combinations of:

InputDevice "Mouse0"/"Mouse1" "CorePointer"/"AlwaysCore"/"SendCoreEvents"
Option "Protocol" "PS/2"/"auto"/"ImPS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"/"psaux"/"/input/event1"

without any success - does anybody have any idea why the GlideStick does not work?