Touchpad not working correctly after fresh install (dell MIni 10)

[Member Joerg]

Hello,

I am new with Antix, but not new to Linux. I am using Manjaro as my bred and butter system since many years.

I just installed Antix on a DELL MINI 10 (1011), which is just 32bit CPU with 1GB of RAM. Previously it did run it on Linux Mint/XFCE, but they do not support 32bit HW anymore. Since also Manjaro dropped 32bit support, I went to Antix for this netbook.
The installation worked like a charm, however I recognized a serious bug:
The specifics with this netbook are that the buttons on the touchpad (left and right) which are “real” buttons, are in the “same area” as the touchpad.
The issue is that I cannot click with the left button and then drag on the touchpad.
Hence, when I click the left button, I cannot move the mouse cursor anymore. SO no moving of windows possible on the desktop, no selecting of Text in the terminal etc.

Any hint to solve this issue is very much appreciated.

[Member marcelocripe]

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Hello Joerg.

Welcome to antiX Linux and the forum.

I don’t know how to write in English and I send my texts translated by the internet translator. I hope you can understand everything, if your native language is not English, please translate my original Brazilian Portuguese text directly into your language with the help of internet translators.

Regardless of your level of knowledge about GNU/Linux, I recommend you read these excellent tutorials created by @PPC:

What is antiX and how to try it out or install it.
Short essential how-to list for the complete Linux newbie.
How-to install applications – 2020 version.
How to: correctly use antiX forum.

When I first started using antiX, I read the tutorials that PPC created, these readings saved me a lot of time and I think it saves time for any new antiX user. Your time will not be wasted with these readings, everything will seem to be much easier than you could imagine. You won’t waste your time searching the internet or even creating new topics, on the contrary, you will gain a lot of time with these readings.

I recommend you try out desktops that have “zzz” in their name. I usually use zzz-IceWM or zzz-JWM or zzz-Fluxbox (each of these desktops has its own characteristics and consumes more or less resources), zzzFM will be the default file manager for your desktop, it it is very similar to the other file managers of other GNU/Linux distributions and Windows XP. To access other antiX workspaces, click on Menu, Desktop, Other Desktops and click on the workspace name, instantly the workspace will be loaded.

Whenever you need to ask for help or technical support, post the output of the terminal command $ inxi -Fxz, copy and paste it in the message of the topic you are going to create in this forum.

When you start a topic or participate with a post, remember to check the option “Notify me of follow-up replies via email”, by checking this option, you will receive a message in your email box whenever there are replies from topic in question.

About the problem that is happening to you, it may be something similar to what happened to me. On a colleague’s laptop, the buttons worked, but cursor movement didn’t work on the touchpad. In this specific case, I needed to install the latest kernel for the touchpad to work. In your case, it may be necessary to do the opposite, install an older kernel. But before installing an old kernel, if you prefer, you can test with a LiveUSB if this will work or not. You can download the ISO Remastering antiX 21 Full 32-bit and 64-bit with Kernel 4.4.0-296 and verifying that with kernel 4.4.0-296 the touchpad will work correctly. If the ISO works for you, then you can install the 4.4.0-296 kernel in the antiX that is installed on your laptop by going to Menu, Applications, System, Package Installer, search for kernel and it will show all available kernels for be installed.

Unfortunately, I have no other idea besides this to try to help you.

marcelocripe
(Original text in Brazilian Portuguese language)

– – – – –

Olá Joerg.

Seja bem-vindo(a) ao antiX Linux e ao fórum.

Eu não sei escrever em idioma Inglês e envio os meus textos traduzidos pelo tradutor da internet. Eu espero que você consiga compreender tudo, caso o seu idioma nativo não seja o Inglês, por favor, traduza o meu texto original em idioma Português do Brasil diretamente para o seu idioma com a ajuda dos tradutores da internet.

Independentemente do seu nível de conhecimento sobre GNU/Linux, eu recomendo você ler estes excelentes tutoriais criados pelo @PPC:

What is antiX and how to try it out or install it.
Short essential how-to list for the complete Linux newbie.
How-to install applications – 2020 version.
How to: correctly use antiX forum.

Quando eu comecei a utilizar o antiX, eu li os tutoriais que o PPC criou, estas leituras me pouparam muito do meu tempo e acho que poupa o tempo de qualquer novo usuário do antiX. O seu tempo não será perdido com estas leituras, tudo parecerá ser muito mais fácil do que você poderia imaginar. Você não perderá o seu tempo com pesquisas na internet ou até mesmo em criar novos tópicos, ao contrário, você ganhará muito tempo com estas leituras.

Eu recomendo você experimentar as áreas de trabalho que possuem “zzz” em seu nome. Eu costumo utilizar o zzz-IceWM ou zzz-JWM ou zzz-Fluxbox (cada uma destas áreas de trabalho possuem características próprias e consomem mais ou menos recursos), o zzzFM será o gerenciador de arquivos padrão da sua área de trabalho, ele é muito semelhante aos outros gerenciadores de arquivos das outras distribuições GNU/Linux e do Windows XP. Para acessar as outras áreas de trabalho do antiX, clique no Menu, Área de Trabalho, Alternar Entre as Áreas de Trabalho e clique sobre o nome da área de trabalho, instantaneamente a área de trabalho será carregada.

Sempre que você precisar solicitar ajuda ou suporte técnico, poste o resultado do comando do terminal $ inxi -Fxz, copie e cole aqui na mensagem do tópico que você for criar neste fórum.

Quando você iniciar algum tópico ou participar com alguma postagem, lembre-se de marcar a opção “Notify me of follow-up replies via email”, marcando esta opção, você receberá uma mensagem na sua caixa de e-mail sempre que houver respostas do tópico em questão.

Sobre o problema que está acontecendo com você, pode ser algo semelhante ao que aconteceu comigo. No laptop de um colega, os botões funcionavam, mas o movimento do cursor não funcionava no touchpad. Neste caso específico, eu precisei instalar o kernel mais recente para o touchpad funcionar. No seu caso, pode ser que seja necessário fazer o inverso, instalar um kernel mais antigo. Mas antes de instalar um kernel antigo, se você preferir, pode testar com um LiveUSB se isso vai funcionar ou não. Você pode baixar a ISO Remasterização do antiX 21 Full de 32 e 64 bits com o Kernel 4.4.0-296 e verificar se com o kernel 4.4.0-296 o touchpad irá funcionar corretamente. Se a ISO funcionar para você, então você poderá instalar no antiX que está instalado no seu laptop o kernel 4.4.0-296, acessando o Menu, Aplicativos, Sistema, Instalador de Pacotes, busque por kernel e será exibido todos os kernels disponíveis para serem instalados.

Infelizmente, eu não tenho outra ideia além desta para tentar te ajudar.

marcelocripe
(Texto original em idioma Português do Brasil)

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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See if any of these are helpful; let us know either way.
Each of the links below provides a slightly different perspective on how to use and remap specific keys on a keyboard to a particular letter or function.

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/954/how-does-keyboard-mapping-work-in-linux
https://superuser.com/questions/290115/how-to-change-console-keymap-in-linux
https://tldp.org/HOWTO/Keyboard-and-Console-HOWTO-15.html

--
Brian Masinick

[Moderator christophe]

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I have one of these Dell Mini 10v 1011. And the touchpad is HORRIBLE.
I would be very surprised if you said Mint worked well, regarding the touchpad. Even Windows did not work well. I never found a good way to use this touchpad.

Regardless, I used a usb mouse while I used this computer frequently.

Later, I set it up for audio-playing duty – ONLY. So I don’t need the mouse any more, using mostly keyboard & simple, infrequent clicks.

See some of the odd-ball workarounds some people used:
https://www.dell.com/community/Laptops-General-Read-Only/Dell-Inspiron-Mini-10-Touchpad-is-a-real-nightmare/td-p/3252396
https://www.dell.com/community/Laptops-General-Read-Only/Drag-and-drop-problems-with-mini-10-touchpad/td-p/3385104

• This reply was modified 10 months ago by christophe.
• This reply was modified 10 months ago by christophe.
• This reply was modified 10 months ago by christophe.

confirmed antiX frugaler, since 2019

[Member Joerg]

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First of all,
thanks for the quick answers to all of you. Though they did not solve the issue yet, they encouraged me to look deeper into this and gain some extra Linux knowledge.

As said, on my (2014 last updated) Linux Mint/XFCE, the touchpad worked without any problem. With Antix, I now understand the rootcause for my issue: If I hid the trackpad button with a non capacitive device (like the backpart of a screwdriver) I can scroll with the mouseppointer in parallel and do all the drag and drops. However, if i use my finger for button pressing, that does not work. The reason is, that the touchpad is sensitive to the touch in the whole area, incl the area where the mouse buttons are located. Hence the solution could be to reduce the sensitive area of the trackpad in the y-direction to move the button area of the trackpad out of the way.

egrep -i ‘synap|alps|etps|elan’ /proc/bus/input/devices
N: Name=”SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad”

So the trackpad is a Synaptics one

$ cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log | grep range
[ 22.892] (–) synaptics: SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad: x-axis range 1472 – 5590 (res 58)
[ 22.892] (–) synaptics: SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad: y-axis range 1408 – 4710 (res 121)
[ 22.892] (–) synaptics: SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad: pressure range 0 – 255
[ 22.892] (–) synaptics: SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad: finger width range 0 – 15

This shows the y-axis range (while I still do not understand, why it does not start from 0)

I think I somehow have to reduce that y-axis range to but the buttons out of the way of the sensitive touchpad area.

$ synclient -l
Parameter settings:
LeftEdge = 1760
RightEdge = 5302
TopEdge = 1639
BottomEdge = 4479

I will try to change the BottomEdge and make that stick.

Keep you posted

[Author]

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