Need to update Xorg.conf file for Synaptics touchpad

[dsaxena]

As per my comment in #8901, we need our Xorg.conf file to load and use the Synaptics driver on laptops with the new touchpad. I'll generate that but I'm not sure how we go about integrating it into the distro.

[dsaxena]

Following patch to xorg.conf allows us to work with both new and old TP. We don't load evdev by default and give priority to the Synaptics device so that it is claimed by the synaptics driver before the evdev driver comes up.

--- xorg-old.conf       2008-11-06 19:16:23.000000000 +0000
+++ xorg.conf   2008-11-06 19:17:45.000000000 +0000
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@
 Section "ServerLayout"
        Identifier     "Default Layout"
        Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
+       InputDevice     "Synaptics" "AlwaysCore"
 EndSection

 #Section "ServerFlags"
@@ -18,7 +19,6 @@
                Option "omit Extended-Visual-Information"
        EndSubSection
        Load  "freetype"
-       Load  "evdev"
        # Load "record" # Mostly a debugging tool
 EndSection

@@ -69,6 +69,13 @@
 EndSection

 Section "InputDevice"
+        Identifier     "Synaptics"
+        Driver         "synaptics"
+       Option          "Protocol" "auto-dev"
+       Option          "FingerHigh" "30"
+       Option          "FingerLow" "25"
+EndSection
+Section "InputDevice"
         Identifier "ATKbd"
         Driver     "evdev"

We may have to tweak some more synaptics-specific options in the config as we play with it more, but this will be good for now.

Assigning to Scott to package into Joyride.

[dsaxena]

xorg.conf diff

[cscott]

Reassigning to mstone to spread the love around.

[mstone]

Here's my first attempt at building this patch into olpc-utils; unfortunately, the patch provided by dsaxena doesn't apply cleanly. I don't expect any problems fixing that up tomorrow.

_However_, this patch changes a fundamental aspect of system -- namely, how evdev is loaded -- and will therefore require either significant retesting or love from someone who actually understands X. (Which I don't.)

Thoughts?

P.S. - Marco has some conflicting patches in the main OLPC-3 branch of olpc-utils in koji. Marco -- can you comment on your patches?

[edmcnierney]

This bug was not on the previous list of 8.2.1 tickets. Why was it set to 8.2.1? I'm fine with the need to provide complete support for the new touchpads; I'm mainly checking in on the process of deciding that something merits an 8.2.1 milestone.

[dsaxena]

I do not think this should be 8.2.1 but joyride/9.1. This change is needed only if we want to fully support the Synaptics feature set such as finger scroll.

[mstone]

Scott added this ticket to the ECO page yesterday evening. Perhaps he can explain why he thinks it should be included in 8.2.1?

[mstone]

SRPM with dsaxena's patch applied. (koji scratch build)

[dsaxena]

Replying to dsaxena:

I do not think this should be 8.2.1 but joyride/9.1. This change is needed only if we want to fully support the Synaptics feature set such as finger scroll.

Additionally, supporting this feature set also requires a kernel config change which means a new kernel, and we do not want to do that for 8.2.1 AFAIK.

[dsaxena]

Replying to edmcnierney:

keywords 8.2.1:+ added

As mentioned in comment:7 and comment:8, I think this change is not needed for 8.2.1. Unless we resolve all the issues blocking #9101 so we can use the full synaptics capabilities, we don't need this.

[dsd]

Per the discussion in #10417 we have found that enabling the synaptics Absolute mode and using the userspace driver is not what we want, due to the change of behaviour where it floods us with a constant stream of packets (even if the EC could cope, this is undesirable for us). Also, we use kbdshim anyway now, so no Xorg conf changes or Xorg userspace driver would be needed. We have also got the synaptics kernel driver upstream into a state where we can disable tap-to-click.