cursor unstable – jumping easily

[Member stevesr0]

(Moderator – if this belongs in the Hardware subforum, please move it there. Thanks)

Hi,

AntiX (17.1) as a regular install on my hard drive is working fine, EXCEPT the cursor jumps around when I am typing which requires an annoying amount of erasing and moving the cursor back where it is supposed to be.

I have searched the internet and the forum for discussions of this and haven’t yet found anything.

QUESTION: Is there a keyboard adjustment app in antiX, like the one for the mouse?
QUESTION: Is this more of an issue with antiX than “other” good Linux distros?

Thanks in advance.

stevesr0

[Member malanrich]

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If you’re on a laptop with a sensitive touchpad, your hand might be brushing the touchpad as you type. If that is the problem, you can disable the touchpad entirely or you can set a delay of a couple of seconds so that brushing it while typing doesn’t make the cursor jump. There are some good threads on this at the MX site (discussing what commands for delay work best and where to put them).

[Member stevesr0]

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Hi malanrich,

thanks for the suggestion. I did look at that site and it led me to explore the touchpad software in linux. Three tools are mentioned that are involved with touchpad configuration (evdev, synaptics and libinput). I have all of them installed on my system.

When I run xinput –list, it states that I have a Synaptics touchpad.

My problem is apparently due to a known bug in the synaptics software (xserver-xorg-input-synaptics) related to multitouch. My touchpad has three buttons below it. Whether multitouch is required for these to work properly, I don’t know

MY options are to attempt to fix the problem by editing the synaptics configuration file or to remove the synaptics package and switch to using libinput instead.

However, I have read that libinput doesn’t offer all the features that synaptics does.

Having just started to learn about this configuration, I am unclear how best to proceed. I haven’t seen a gui to make the configuration easy, and I would greatly appreciate advice from anyone(s) who has(have) dealt with this problem.

Thanks in advance.

stevesr0

[Member malanrich]

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Hi stevesr0,

Good luck with configuration. For future reference, you might use syndaemon (sometimes spelled syndameon on the MX forum) if you haven’t run across that yet. I mean if configuration doesn’t fix the problem, you can use syndaemon to temporarily suspend the touchpad while typing. See this post: https://forum.mxlinux.org/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=44186&p=436534&hilit=syndameon#p436534

Good luck!

[Member stevesr0]

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Hi malanrich,

Thanks for the response. I have heard of syndaemon and synclient. As I type a lot and use the touchpad a lot, I prefer to avoid inhibiting the touchpad in a general way, if I can implement a better fix.

Adjusting the “jumpy cursor threshold” option in the synaptics configuration has solved this for some users, while others have shifted to libinput instead of synaptics to eliminate it.

I figure that after I “digest” the differences between these, I will be prepared to try to fix the issue.

stevesr0

[Member Sadshark [p.n.2001]]

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This isn’t so much of a problem with Antix as it is the design of your laptop. As another poster said those touchpads can often be pretty sensitive. But if you want to adjust the sensitivity its in the control centre under the hardware submenu.

Running antinataliX GNU/Linux 19.9 on my Compaq Mini 110c-1100
On my desktop running Kubuntu 18.04 LTS
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[Member stevesr0]

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Hi Sadshark,
Thanks for response.

I had previously looked at that (configure mouse), but the adjustments available didn’t make a difference.

I believe this is a known problem which is managed by either moving from the Synaptics driver to the libinput (or alternative) driver, or by making adjustments in the synaptics configuration file.

I am planning to try the latter (and then if unsucessful, the former) when I have enough time and patience.

stevesr0

[Member stevesr0]

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Hi all,

I finally got around to purging the xserver synaptics package as recommended by Juan Hernandez on an Ubuntu forum and it has apparently eliminated the twitchiness and the moving around of the text insertion on my Fujitsu laptop. I did not do anything else in configuration except to add “natural scrolling” as an option on the libinput.conf file (recommended in the same thread).

This computer has separate touchpad and mouse buttons. My other laptop (a Lenovo Yoga) has only a “clickpad”, with segments of it acting as left and right mouse buttons. I haven’t done this as yet on that machine.

If this one is working well for a longer period of time, I will try the cure on that one. That might leave me without click tho (according to others with clickpads).

I will eventually follow up if this is a long term fix and also let people know if it works for the clickpad also.

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