Laptops :: curse the touchpad!

Yes, a version of this has been posted before, but i just wanted to explain some extra experiences I'm having and see if anyone can come up with something.

Ok, I just booted DSL on my laptop (Compaq Presario 705US), and it finds a "generic mouse" just fine. I select that I don't have a scroll mouse (since the mouse-scrolling on this thing is button based, not wheel based)....the desktop starts up, and upon touching the touchpad the pointer shoots to the bottom of the screen, and will only move on the X-axis. Can't move up and down.

I rebooted, yet instead told it that i DID have a scroll mouse. Boots up, and the cursor shoots to the bottom again. but moving up and down on the pad changes the workspaces. in other words, the Y-axis on the touch pad sends the same signals as a scrollwheel on a mouse (!).

Any new suggestions? OTHER than just plugging in a PS2/USB mouse? Any hacks or anything? TIA!!!

BTW, still learning linux, and i'm LOVING DSL! The first distro to actually work well for me so far! ;)

The Kdrive TinyX server that comes with DSL does not work correctly with some PS/2 style mouse devices.

I have an old Microsoft PS/2 mouse (no scroll wheel) that behaves the same way as your touchpad.

The only solutions that I am aware of are:

(1) Replace the Kdrive Xwindows servers with the standard XFree86 servers (not for the faint of heart).

(2) By a cheap mouse with a scroll wheel.

Good Luck.

original here.