Re: How I "fixed" my laptop Alps touchpad

[Default User <xyzzyx@sbcglobal.net>]

On Tue, 2007-06-26 at 23:30 -0500, Default User wrote:
> My laptop has an Alps touchpad (not Synaptics). Running any FOSS system,
> it was too slow. Moving from top to bottom or side to side of the
> touchpad only moved the cursor about 1/2 to 2/3 the height or width of
> the screen. So I was using a mouse (on a laptop?) instead. What the
> hell, it worked. 
> 
> Today, running Ubuntu 7.04, I finally figured out a quick fix for the
> touchpad. All I had to do was, as root, add one line to the
> file /etc/X11/xorg.conf: 
> 
>         Option          "AccelFactor"           "0.5"
> 
> (BACK UP THE FILE FIRST, OF COURSE!)
> Then I rebooted (just logging out of the X session and logging back in
> without rebooting did not work). BTW, the acceleration factor of 0.5 was
> chosen at randon, it just happened to work. You may need to use a
> different value.
> 
> It works! For now anyway. And I have freed up a usb port as well. But it
> will take some getting used to using a touchpad rather than a mouse. 
> 
> Hope this helps someone else. 
> 
> 
> 
> 

The little details mean so much. Should have stated the first time that
the line:       

Option          "AccelFactor"           "0.5"

Was added as the last line to the Synaptics Touchpad section of the
file /etc/X11/xorg.conf, like this:

Section "InputDevice"
	Identifier	"Synaptics Touchpad"
	Driver		"synaptics"
	Option		"SendCoreEvents"	"true"
	Option		"Device"		"/dev/psaux"
	Option		"Protocol"		"auto-dev"
	Option		"HorizScrollDelta"	"0"
        Option          "AccelFactor"           "0.5"
EndSection