Q4OS Forum

cooljpeg

Member

Registered: 2022-01-03

Posts: 6

Configuring touchpad settings?

Hi there! I'm relatively new to Linux and just installed Q4OS TDE and am absolutely in love with it! I'm still configuring everything at the moment, but can't seem to get the touchpad working fully (two finger scroll being the main feature missing).

I have a Lenovo ThinkPad T420 which is perfectly capable of multitouch gestures, but nothing I do seems to be getting it to work. I've been referring to the Debian documentation on SynapticsTouchpad for this issue. It recommends we run a command to see whether or not we have synaptics, which prints out this on my machine:

N: Name="SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad"
P: Phys=synaptics-pt/serio0/input0

So, it seems I have synaptics? I tried installing libinput as it was recommended, but it doesn't seem to work, even after configuration. So, I tried modifying the synaptics config file in /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/ and still no dice.

I have a feeling I'm missing something being so new and loosely following these documentation pages without fully understanding what I'm doing. Any help and guidance would be greatly appreciated, thanks so much! :+}

q4osteam

Q4OS Team

Registered: 2015-12-06

Posts: 4,502

Website

Re: Configuring touchpad settings?

You need to install Synaptics driver:
$ sudo apt install xserver-xorg-input-synaptics
and make configuration:
"/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-synaptics.conf"

cooljpeg

Member

Registered: 2022-01-03

Posts: 6

Re: Configuring touchpad settings?

Thanks for the reply! It seems as though the Synaptics driver is already installed, and I don't see a file called "50-synaptics.conf" in my "xorg.conf.d" folder. I do see one titled "70-synaptics.conf" which I made my initial modifications inside of (using sudo nano), but to no avail. Do I have to create the "50-synaptics.conf" file myself? And if so, how do I gain write access to my "xorg.conf.d" folder? All the guides and articles I've found about changing file/directory permissions has been super confusing to me to be honest as they assume I have a somewhat developed understanding of the command line and how file permissions work in Linux (which I very much do not ).

q4osteam

Q4OS Team

Registered: 2015-12-06

Posts: 4,502

Website

Re: Configuring touchpad settings?

You may also need to deactivate libinput driver in the "xorg.conf.d" folder.

Tolkem

Member

Registered: 2019-10-06

Posts: 487

Re: Configuring touchpad settings?

Do I have to create the "50-synaptics.conf" file myself?

No, you don't, as the other file is present there.

And if so, how do I gain write access to my "xorg.conf.d" folder? All the guides and articles I've found about changing file/directory permissions has been super confusing to me to be honest as they assume I have a somewhat developed understanding of the command line and how file permissions work in Linux (which I very much do not ).

Leave that as it is, system-wide files are to be owned by root, to prevent bad things from happening.