Taming jittery touchpads - need some inputs from all

[sling-shot]

I have been struggling with a jittery touchpad on my netbook.
After some observation, I have noted that it is more jittery in the vertical plane than the horizontal movements.

Initially I gave some attempts to tweaking the mouse settings which yielded no good results. There was no default touchpad configuration panel in KDE Settings.

I installed kcm_touchpad and synaptik from repos and rebooted. This however produced the following error

Code: [Select]

synPS/2  Synaptics Touchpad; Synaptics Gestures; no such property

There were 2 entries under Lost and Found in KDE Settings, the first one just crashed whenever clicked on and second one gave a configuration screen where settings could be adjusted. They seemed to have some results but my tweaking produced some unwanted results and I reset everything to defaults.
In spite of that, sometimes I felt touchpad had become MARGINALLY better (purely subjective)

Recently I have installed Pardus 2011 on the same netbook. It ships with a touchpad configuration tool under KDE Settings > Hardware > Input devices > Touchpad.
It has one of the best touchpad behaviour I have seen in Linux distros. It is closes to how touchpad behaves under Windows.
I could not find a xorg.conf in that installation. I thought there might be something useful which if I copy to my PCLinuxOS it might solve this problem.

I am waiting for more light on this matter.
-SS.

[ka9yhd]

I was very happy with Qsynaptics, but it is no longer in the repos.  There is something called Touchfreeze, which does not help me.
In Qsynaptics I was able to turn off the tap to confirm because while I was typing, the touchpad was clicking on anything and everything.
I would like to see implemented what you are describing what Pardus 2011 has.

[Archie]

Have you tried checking Configure Your Computer (aka PCLinxuOS Control Center or drakconf) and note the Hardware > Browse and Configure Harware > Mouse? What are available?

Do you have the same touchpad as I have? My machine uses Alps and it works flawlessly without the need to reconfigure anything.

You did not give us enough information about your machine, the type of touchpad in your machine (netbook, what type? it couldn't be the specs listed on your signature, is it? I'm confuse.) for some one to give you an expert advice.

[sling-shot]

There is something called Touchfreeze, which does not help me.

Touchfreeze will deactivate the touchpad while typing. This prevents accidental mouse movements and clicks.

But it has no role in jittery behaviour.

[sling-shot]

Have you tried checking Configure Your Computer (aka PCLinxuOS Control Center or drakconf) and note the Hardware > Browse and Configure Harware > Mouse? What are available?

Touchpad is available but the only configuration option is to select what type of touchpad like USB/Serial etc. There is no option to configure the sensitivity or driver.

Do you have the same touchpad as I have? My machine uses Alps and it works flawlessly without the need to reconfigure anything.

I have Synaptics touchpad.

You did not give us enough information about your machine, the type of touchpad in your machine (netbook, what type? it couldn't be the specs listed on your signature, is it? I'm confuse.) for some one to give you an expert advice.

It is an Intel Atom 450 based netbook with 1 GB RAM, 250 GB HDD. Synaptics touchpad.

[Archie]

OK you have tried kcm_touchpad and synaptiks. Touchfreeze was also mentioned. Have you tried gpointing-device-settings which is in the repository? It is stated that it is the successor to GSynaptics.

[sling-shot]

I have not tried gpointing-device-settings. Will check that out too.

[Archie]

I have not tried gpointing-device-settings. Will check that out too.

Let us know how that goes. Post back.

[uggy]

Had similar problem on friends laptop months ago, cursor jiggled when moving. This was being caused by bit of dirt at edge of touchpad, after thorough clean was sorted.
maybe worth a look.

Also, can't you adjust sensitivity under normal mouse settings?  goto desktop config>input devices>mouse>advanced.

Only 2 suggestions I can think of.

[sling-shot]

[Archie]
Have installed 'gpointing-device-settings' now I feel subjectively better again
Note: gpointing-device-settings was not found in either KMenu or KDE Settings. I had to launch it from command line.

Also I have found out that Pardus uses synaptik for touchpad configuration.

[uggy]
Adjustments to the normal mouse settings do not seem to address the jitter at least for me. Might be because even when we feel our finger is resting steady on the touchpad there is a slight movement which is perceived by the touchpad. May be reducing the sensitivity of the touchpad should help but that is not an option under normal mouse settings?

[sling-shot]

Latest KDE update to 4.6.1 had brought about a good change in relation to the jitteriness. It was probably due to the Synaptic driver update that came along or updated KSynaptic.

It also changed the error at login from "Synaptic Gestures No such property" to "Your system does not support touchpad configuration"

Now mouse pointer is stable and also has lost a bit of its speed/acceleration.