[SOLVED] New kernel driver for the BCM5974 touchpad (Macbook Air, Penryn)

[kosumi68]

What version of synaptics are you using? I have 0.14.6 and it says "MultiFingerButton" isn't recognized
Edit: Hm, I enabled tapping in xorg.conf by uncommenting the TapButton2/3 lines and it works now, but only with tapping enabled. Double-finger + button click doesn't produce a right-click but I believe this is a bug in synaptics, not your driver

The synaptics version is 0.14.7~git20070706-mactel1, you need to add the mactel repositories to get it via the package manager.

For the swiping, a triple finger "swipe" (really just a left/right movement) moves back/forward in Firefox or the file browser. Apple also has a rotate gesture for pictures which is pretty neat.

Ok - then you only need to enable horizontal scroll in xorg.conf and in your trackpad configuration (System/Preferences/Touchpad)

I believe there is (at least experimental) support for rotation in the synaptics driver, something to think about...

I have a technical question - is the finger detection done in synaptics or the actual kernel module? One thing I've noticed is two-finger taps don't always scroll (the mouse just jumps across the screen like on older laptops when you have one finger down and put another on the trackpad).

It's tricky reproducing it, but one way I found that works most of the time is to put one finger on the trackpad, start moving it and then try to scroll up/down by adding a second finger. synclient shows that two fingers are detected which is odd...

The finger detection is done in the driver.
Indeed, I have noticed one or two other things like this. It is my intention to see what can be done about it.

[firewing1]

Excellent, let me know if need any help... I'm still learning my way around programming kernel modules, but I'll offer any help I can.

Hm, your driver seems to have the same problem as mine as well - the mouse moves across the screen just by touching various parts of the touchpad. Try for example starting on the top-left side of the touchpad, make 5 taps downwards to reach the bottom-left corner then make 10 taps to get to the bottom right corner. In my case the tapping still works, but the mouse jumped across 1/2 the screen. Maybe this is what's causing the double-finger scroll to fail? I've noticed that typically when it the scroll doesn't happen the mouse jumps.

Edit: In the code from touchd that mapped out x/y coordinates, I printed out the value of the two separate numbers that were added and I found that one seems to be the value of a large sensor - its value is in multiple of 256. The other one seems to be a more precise sensor with a limit of roughly 100. So touching either side of an area which was the limit of the large sensor would result in a jump of 156x156 (0+100 vs 256+0)... /me thinks there might be a third sensor that's not being taken accounted for.

Firewing1.

[kosumi68]

firewing, could you please check that you are running precisely the synaptics settings found here http://web.comhem.se/rydberg/Bits/xorg-settings.html and see if the problem you describe persists? I tried it and it was very smooth.

You can check the bcm5974.c source to see my current observations regarding the device sensors.

[firewing1]

firewing, could you please check that you are running precisely the synaptics settings found here http://web.comhem.se/rydberg/Bits/xorg-settings.html and see if the problem you describe persists? I tried it and it was very smooth.

You can check the bcm5974.c source to see my current observations regarding the device sensors.

I redid my Xorg settings and it still happens

I'm going to try to get myself a git build of synaptics to see if it helps...
Edit: Hm, how many inputs does your Xorg log show? My logs show 4 "mouse" inputs, maybe this is the cause of the problem?

(II) XINPUT: Adding extended input device "<default pointer>" (type: MOUSE)
(II) XINPUT: Adding extended input device "Synaptics Touchpad" (type: MOUSE)
(II) XINPUT: Adding extended input device "Macintosh mouse button emulation" (type: MOUSE)
(II) XINPUT: Adding extended input device "HID 05ac:820b" (type: MOUSE)

firewing1

[kosumi68]

(II) XINPUT: Adding extended input device "HID 05ac:820b" (type: MOUSE)

Wow, this is the first time is see this one attached to anything... I have noticed that usbhid detects it, but thought of it as some not-used interface.

You could try disabling it altogether, try adding this quirk in /etc/modprobe.d/options (or append to your existing ones):

options usbhid quirks=05ac:820b:0x00000004

This will ignore the device altogether.

UPDATE: a simpler way might be to comment out all devices but the synaptics driver in the ServerLayout section of xorg.conf.

[firewing1]

Wow, this is the first time is see this one attached to anything... I have noticed that usbhid detects it, but thought of it as some not-used interface.

You could try disabling it altogether, try adding this quirk in /etc/modprobe.d/options (or append to your existing ones):

options usbhid quirks=05ac:820b:0x00000004

This will ignore the device altogether.

UPDATE: a simpler way might be to comment out all devices but the synaptics driver in the ServerLayout section of xorg.conf.

Thanks, I'll give that a try. I thing this might have something to do with Fedora 9's very recent Xorg version - It uses a 1.5 pre-release which would explain why you've never seen this happen before. I'll post back with the results ^_^

BTW - Since the problem seems to be fedora-specific now, I can create a thread on fedoraforum if you'd like. I posted here because that was the link from the touchd mailing list

[firewing1]

Wow, this is the first time is see this one attached to anything... I have noticed that usbhid detects it, but thought of it as some not-used interface.

You could try disabling it altogether, try adding this quirk in /etc/modprobe.d/options (or append to your existing ones):

options usbhid quirks=05ac:820b:0x00000004

This will ignore the device altogether.

UPDATE: a simpler way might be to comment out all devices but the synaptics driver in the ServerLayout section of xorg.conf.

Interesting, it seems synaptics was ignoring the settings in xorg.conf - I used a shell script to read them and parse them using synclient, now the jumpyness is gone. Not sure if it was the settings or the extra input.

Either way, heads up for when ubuntu updates to Xorg server v1.5 - Synaptics settings in xorg.conf might break

Thanks for your help.

[kosumi68]

Firewing, great! That makes it 2 MBAs and 4 Penryns reported so far. Thanks to all of you for reporting details and tips, what a wonderfully parallel testing environment this is!

[magaio]

Hey Kosumi,

So I got the touchpad to work exactly as I wanted. One thing though ... now my usb mouse doesn't respond when plugged in. It's sending data to /dev/input/mice but something about the conf isn't recognizing it. Right now I'm just commenting out between "Configured Mouse" and "Synaptics Touchpad" in ServerLayout. Am I missing something?

# xorg.conf (X.Org X Window System server configuration file)
#
# This file was generated by dexconf, the Debian X Configuration tool, using
# values from the debconf database.
#
# Edit this file with caution, and see the xorg.conf manual page.
# (Type "man xorg.conf" at the shell prompt.)
#
# This file is automatically updated on xserver-xorg package upgrades *only*
# if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xorg
# package.
#
# If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated
# again, run the following command:
#   sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

Section "InputDevice"
	Identifier	"Generic Keyboard"
	Driver		"kbd"
	Option		"XkbRules"	"xorg"
	Option		"XkbModel"	"pc105"
	Option		"XkbLayout"	"us"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
	Identifier	"Configured Mouse"
	Driver		"mouse"
	Option		"CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
	Identifier	"Synaptics Touchpad"
	Driver		"synaptics"
	Option		"SendCoreEvents"	"true"
	Option		"Device"		"/dev/input/mice"
	Option		"Protocol"		"auto-dev"
	Option		"CorePointer"

        # exclusive grabbing of device
        Option		"GrabEventDevice"	"1"

        # simulate right button
        Option		"MultiFingerButton"	"2"

        # not using edge scrolling
        Option          "HorizEdgeScroll"       "0"
        Option          "VertEdgeScroll"        "0"

        # use two finger scrolling
        Option          "VertTwoFingerScroll"   "1"
        Option          "HorizTwoFingerScroll"  "1" 

        # set to 0 if you don't want horizontal scrolling
        # scroll speed, lower is faster
        Option          "HorizScrollDelta"      "0"
        Option          "VertScrollDelta"       "40"

        # minimum pressure motion factor
        Option          "PressureMotionMinZ"    "10"

        # touch and untouch thresholds, higher numbers
        # if you like to push hard, change to 30 or 40
        Option          "FingerLow"             "16"
        Option          "FingerHigh"            "23"
        Option          "FingerPress"           "256"

        # palm detect
        Option          "PalmDetect"             "0"
        Option          "PalmMinWidth"           "180"
        Option          "PalmMinZ"               "10"  

        # borders based on output from synclient
        # controls the edge scrolling
        # turned off by specifing the exact size /henrik
        Option          "LeftEdge"              "0"
        Option          "RightEdge"             "1280"
        Option          "TopEdge"               "0"
        Option          "BottomEdge"            "800"

        # speeds, smaller number for a slower mouse
        Option          "MinSpeed"              "0.8"
        # 0.5 is very slow, 1.5 is very fast
        Option          "MaxSpeed"              "1.2"
        # up to 1.5 works ok
        Option          "AccelFactor"           "0.10"

        # tap times, change to suit your tapping habits
        Option          "MaxTapMove"            "100"
        Option          "MaxTapTime"            "223"
        Option          "MaxDoubleTapTime"      "200"
        
        # don't change these or two finger tap stops working
        #Option          "TapButton2"            "3"
        #Option          "TapButton3"            "2"
        Option          "TapButton2"             "0"
        Option          "TapButton3"             "0"

        # must be commented out or normal tapping wont work
        Option          "TapButton1"             "0"

        # not using corner buttons
        Option          "RTCornerButton"         "0"
        Option          "RBCornerButton"         "0"
        Option          "LTCornerButton"         "0"
        Option          "LBCornerButton"         "0"  

        # needed for disabled while typing fix  
        Option          "SHMConfig"              "true"

EndSection


Section "Device"
	Identifier	"Configured Video Device"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier	"Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier	"Default Screen"
	Monitor		"Configured Monitor"
	Device		"Configured Video Device"
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
	Identifier	"Default Layout"
	Screen		"Default Screen"
	#InputDevice	"Synaptics Touchpad"
	InputDevice	"Configured Mouse"
EndSection

[kosumi68]

Yeah, I realized this myself earlier today - you need to comment out the CorePointer line of the synaptics configuration, then you should get both the mouse and trackpad events.

PS. The option is there for "historical reasons" - I will comment it out in the file on the webpage. Thanks for pointing it out! DS.