How to find a driver for a laptop touchpad

General Linux Question
1

I installed IceWM in Antix in my old 32 bit laptop.
I starts, the screen is normal, but the cursor arrow does not work. The laptop has a touchpad.
So something is missing… either a driver module or some xorg package.
I know that the laptop touchpad is driveable from Linux… it also has Void, and it works there, and I have previously had Debian.

So , I went looking for hardware info. Tried
lshw and lspci and there is no mention of a touch device or a keyboard?
I tried various obvious guesses like the evdev module, and installed things like

xserver-xorg-input-libinput
xserver-xorg-input-evdev
xserver-xorg-input-synaptics
libinput

but to no avail.
I get a cursor arrow, but can not move it.

So, is there some systematic way to determine what is missing?

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2

Maybe USB boot an Ubuntu or some such live distro and see if you can find it there. Assuming it works under the live distro.

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3

I have a working Void. I have been looking there.
It has a module called uinput
I am going to try that.

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4

Not really relevant in your case - but with a fresh install of Pop!_OS 22.04 on my AMD Thinkpad - “natural scrolling” wasn’t working with the touchpad… I don’t understand why this can’t be on all the time…

It’s a configurable in the Pop! settings applet (really just Gnome Settings) for Mouse and Touchpad - but using the touchpad to enable or disable natural scrolling did exactly BUPKISS!

Frustrating - did some searching - on Pop! Reddits and other sites - one suggested installing “libinput”, another installing synaptic (assuming the touchpad is a synaptics one) - but libinput is not a package in Ubuntu / Pop! apt repositories - and apart from natural scrolling not working, the touchpad was working, so it wasn’t a driver or synaptic hardware / driver issue…

Updated / Upgraded Pop! Rebooted - nada - still no natural scrolling, checking or unchecking “Natural Scrolling” setting still doing sweet FA.

Just as an “afterthought” I tried doing it via Synergy (i.e. Synergy KVM client on the Thinkpad, Synergy KVM server on my desktop) - I unchecked, then checked the setting on the Thinkpad - and IT STARTED WORKING!

I guess I could probably have tried the same thing with the Trackpoint and Trackpoint buttons (just below spacebar) on the Thinkpad, to the same effect.

Using Pop!_OS : don’t try to set or unset Natural Scrolling using the touchpad, use an external mouse, or Synergy KVM - or - the Trackpoint…

5

I found this

have you ever tried
xinput set-prop ...

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6

No luck with that.
Tried several other things to no avail, including setting options
on tbe psmouse module.
I am also having trouble setting up /etc/modprobe.d to load modukes at boot
I also had trouble attempting an update, the mirror site seems to not contain any repo files.
I am going to give up and reinstall Antix from a “base” iso instead of a “minimal” iso. That should at least get me a working X setup.

7

I had a ThinkPad x220 that had a touch screen. When I installed Linux and booted the PC, the cursor would be jumping all over the place. Doing research on the web, i found out that;

a temp solution was xinput disable 14

and to make the change permanent I had to Edit /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-evdev.conf and add Option “Ignore” “on” to the end of the section with the touchscreen identifier.

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8

Thanks Howard,
Before I give up, I will have a look what is in xorg.conf.d in my setup. I do feel now my problem is an X11 issue, not a driver.
Failing that I will do a new install of the base Antix iso , which has X preconfigured, I hope.
Laptops are a pain.

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9

My /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d has a file synaptics.conf so my case is not using evdev.
There were 2 synaptics modules… I tried loading those and it did not help.

I compared it to,Void in the same laptop. Void has nothing in
/etc/x11/xorg.conf.d and it does not load any synaptics module, and the touchpad works in Void?

I give up. I wil reinstall Antix from the base version. That should work as it includes X

Thanks Howard

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10

@easyt50 ,
I wiped it and reinstalled from
antiX-23-runit_386-base.iso
The first try hung during install
The second try, with failsafe boot parameter did the install . The live Antix had a working touchpad, the graphics installer had a working touchpad, the installer finished and then hung with an
Antix wallpaper and nothing else.
I went to Void , did update-grub , then was able to boot Antix.
It brought up a login manager screen, with a working touchpad,
I logged in as demo choosing IceWM, and it did not start IceWM
properly… I think the X video settings are now wrong.

Next step will be to boot it in recovery mode, and see if I can alter the kernel boot parameters to make video work.

So it is possible to have a working touchpad with Antix… I dont know the magic trick yet.
and
It would seem Antix can fail to configure itself properly during an install… at least in my old laptop.
It may not be worth the effort. I have Void, and it works fine, without all this nonsense.

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