Synaptics Touchpad in Absolute Mode

  • Hi, I am fairly new to LibreELEC, but participated many times in the former OpenELEC forums.

    At this time, I am facin an ackward issue. I cuurently am using v7.90.2 on my ThinPad T440p, and have noticed that the Synaptics touchpad behaves in absolute mode, as opposed to the "usual" relative mode. This proves to be very unconvenient for using Chromium, and would like to revert the behavior to the former relative mode. Absolute mode makes almost imposible to simultaneously select an item in any corner or edge of the screen and click it, as there are no physical mouse buttons available.

    I am not sure if this is a bug, or a desired design feature, but in any case, I would rather have a way to chose which mode I like the best.

    Some debugging information:

    dmesg output:
    baFG

    kodi.log output (in debug mode):
    eKCc


    Your help or troubleshooting guidance will be appreciated.

    Thank you


  • would you mind testing this old milhouse build? LibreELEC-Generic.x86_64-8.0-Milhouse-20160423121110-#0423-gf1aef79.tar

    I ask because it uses libinput instead of evdev. Perhaps it will work better with your trackpad.

    Thank you. Tried to download the file, but it is not there. Checked the folder and oldest file is dated from June. Have you got any other link for download?

    Is there any chance to check the evdev config in the newer builds to see if it is messed up/broken? (If such config file exists)

    Thanks


  • would you mind testing this old milhouse build? LibreELEC-Generic.x86_64-8.0-Milhouse-20160423121110-#0423-gf1aef79.tar

    I ask because it uses libinput instead of evdev. Perhaps it will work better with your trackpad.

    Thanks Irusak, tested the mentioned build and the touchpad works as expected. libinput seems to do the trick.
    Is there any chance to check evdev config of the newer builds.
    It has to be something related.

    Also, tested brightness controls as reported in other thread but they do not work with the indicated build.

    Regards

  • So far no response.
    Any chance to provide some troubleshooting steps?

    As confirmed, it looks like evdev is the culprit, as I have tested an old build using libinput as suggested by Irusak and issue is fixed.

    Thabks

  • Gaudi
    I compiled LibreElec grom git master with "bloatware" Synaptics driver ;) Here is my patch with libs: LibreELEC_synaptics_patch.tar.bz2
    I did it the first time in my life and I do not know if it will work :) I will not have my Toshiba laptop for a few days, so I can't test the patch by myself. You can test it on your ThinkPad if you want, or wait for my tests.
    I wrote small shell script to apply my patch to Milhouse build. You can set variable BUILD_ARCH to any Milhouse build.

    PS Script is working with files in current directory, so it is good to create a temporary directory for this:

    Code
    mkdir /tmp/LE_patch
    cd /tmp/LE_patch

    Edited once, last by valdi74 (November 28, 2016 at 1:28 PM).


  • Gaudi
    I compiled LibreElec grom git master with "bloatware" Synaptics driver ;) Here is my patch with libs: LibreELEC_synaptics_patch.tar.bz2
    I did it the first time in my life and I do not know if it will work :) I will not have my Toshiba laptop for a few days, so I can't test the patch by myself. You can test it on your ThinkPad if you want, or wait for my tests.
    I wrote small shell script to apply my patch to Milhouse build. You can set variable BUILD_ARCH to any Milhouse build.


    I am quite illiterate in terms of compiling software, so I guess I will have to wait for your tests.
    In any case, I dislike the idea to set aside from "official" builds doing my own or using a different one.


  • I am quite illiterate in terms of compiling software, so I guess I will have to wait for your tests.


    It's precompiled (by me) patch, so you don't have to compile anything. Script gets Milhouse build, decompress it, copies new files with synaptic driver into it and compress back. You can wait for my tests few days. I will let you know if it works.


    In any case, I dislike the idea to set aside from "official" builds doing my own or using a different one.


    I don't like the idea doing my own builds also, but for now it's only way to get our touchpad to work. You can try to convince the developers to add the driver to the official release. I have failed to do that :(
    In fact, I did official buld from LE git master :)

  • Submit a PR to LE master, and let's review it on github. Even if it's not accepted it gets the changes out in public where others may find it useful for their own custom builds.


  • Submit a PR to LE master, and let's review it on github. Even if it's not accepted it gets the changes out in public where others may find it useful for their own custom builds.

    OK, I'll do it after positive tests on my laptop. Thanks for advice.

    EDIT: My touchpad is working fine with synaptics driver :) Now I'm learning how to submit a PR to LE.

    EDIT2: I submitted pull request. I tried to follow instructions in CONTRIBUTING.md, but I do not know if I did it correctly. I'm not familiar with git and it was my first multifile commit.

    Edited once, last by valdi74 (November 28, 2016 at 3:12 PM).