Dell E6410, squeeze, touchpad anddddd keyboard problems

[Johann Spies <jspies@sun.ac.za>]

Apologies for the long post but it is along and sad story :)

I have enough ram (8Gb) on this laptop.  

Maybe all the problems are related to my inabillity to disable the touchpad.
On this
syeX11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
(I pushed Cntl-C otherwise it would have been a few lines of these)

sorry, that was meant to be 'system X11 functions without
/etc/X11/xorg.conf.'

As you can see in the above line sometimes the keyboard misses a pressed
key ('sye' - must have been 'system') and sometimes it repeats keys. Other
times, like when I work in Emacs with more than one buffer in split windows,
the cursor jumps to another frame and the typing continues in another
buffer.

On my previous laptop (Thinkpad R61e) I could use the following to disable
the touchpad:

/usr/bin/synclient "TouchpadOff=\
`/usr/bin/synclient -l | sed -ne \
's/\(TouchpadOff *= *\)\([01]\)/\2/p' | sed -e 'y/01/10/'`"

Now when I try this I get 'Couldn't find synaptics properties. No synaptics
driver loaded?'

I have created a /etc/X11/xorg.conf with the following contents:


Section "InputClass"

        Identifier      "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad"

        Option  "LeftEdge"      "1700"
        Option  "RightEdge"     "5700"
        Option  "TopEdge"       "1700"
        Option  "BottomEdge"    "5100"
        Option  "FingerLow"     "25"
        Option  "FingerHigh"    "30"
        Option  "MaxTapTime"    "180"
        Option  "MaxTapMove"    "220"
        Option  "VertScrollDelta"       "100"
        Option  "MinSpeed"      "0.09"
        Option  "MaxSpeed"      "0.6"
        Option  "HorizEdgeScroll"       "true"
        Option  "TapButton1"    "1"
        Option  "SHMConfig"     "true"
EndSection


in the hope that it will load the synaptics driver, but that did not make
any difference.

Then I installed touchfreeze but that did not solve my problems.

Any idea how to solve this mess?

Regards.

Johann
-- 
Johann Spies                            Telefoon: 021-808 4699
Databestuurder /  Data manager

Sentrum vir Navorsing oor Evaluasie, Wetenskap en Tegnologie
Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology 
Universiteit Stellenbosch.

     "And there were in the same country shepherds abiding 
      in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.
      And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the
      glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were 
      sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not:
      for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy, which
      shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day 
      in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the 
      Lord."        Luke 2:8-11