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Thread: Just bought a laptop with an alps touchpad. Should I be worried?

  1. #1
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    Just bought a laptop with an alps touchpad. Should I be worried?

    Hello! I just bought a used Dell Latitude E4300 on ebay. Upon reading a review of the Latitude, I had noticed it has an Alps touchpad. I had no idea what this meant so of course I Googled it. It looks as if it's a competitor of Synaptic, I take it. At any rate, I of course searched the forums and found quite a few people complaining of Alps touchpads in Ubuntu. Of course, any time you search for an issue, that's what you'll find - more people having issues.

    Anybody here using an E4300, or another laptop that has an Alps touchpad? How is support with it? Does it work without headache?

  2. #2
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    Re: Just bought a laptop with an alps touchpad. Should I be worried?

    Quote Originally Posted by Roasted View Post
    Hello! I just bought a used Dell Latitude E4300 on ebay. Upon reading a review of the Latitude, I had noticed it has an Alps touchpad. I had no idea what this meant so of course I Googled it. It looks as if it's a competitor of Synaptic, I take it. At any rate, I of course searched the forums and found quite a few people complaining of Alps touchpads in Ubuntu. Of course, any time you search for an issue, that's what you'll find - more people having issues.

    Anybody here using an E4300, or another laptop that has an Alps touchpad? How is support with it? Does it work without headache?


    Don't have one, but here is a lot of information

    http://pj.freefaculty.org/blog/alps-...-statement-now

  3. #3
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    Re: Just bought a laptop with an alps touchpad. Should I be worried?

    Quote Originally Posted by bkratz View Post
    Don't have one, but here is a lot of information

    http://pj.freefaculty.org/blog/alps-...-statement-now
    Thanks. I had actually already ran into that link. Afterwards that's what prompted me to post here to see what other users were seeing.

    Any Alps users out there?

    EDIT - Just found this link on AskUbuntu:

    http://people.canonical.com/~sforshe...s_0.10_all.deb

    I have to wonder some things. For one, Alps didn't come out just last year, did it? I wonder why people reported Alps touchpads working great and all of the sudden in 11.04 and 11.10 they didn't work any longer. Lots of people said 10.10 was great but bump to 11.04 and it tanks. I've heard of some people saying the kernel coming with 12.04 should have this issue fixed, and for 11.04 and 11.10 this .deb should take care of it. I just find it strange that we seemed to have taken a step backwards in regard to Alps touchpads working with the introduction of 11.04. Was there some sort of regression or trimming of kernel fat that bit us on the tail end here?

    Do other distros have this issue? I'm wondering if the contents of this .deb can somehow work upstream for other distros if that's the case.
    Last edited by Roasted; April 5th, 2012 at 01:50 AM.

  4. #4
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    Re: Just bought a laptop with an alps touchpad. Should I be worried?

    I guess that's a no?

  5. #5
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    Re: Just bought a laptop with an alps touchpad. Should I be worried?

    To my surprise, the laptop came in already. Ubuntu 12.04 installed fine and the touchpad works beautifully for normal use. The only thing is, I only have edge scrolling, no 2 finger scrolling. The option is grayed out in the touchpad settings panel.

    Any way to get it back? I grabbed the dkms package from people.canonical.com or something (0.10) but same deal.

  6. #6
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    Re: Just bought a laptop with an alps touchpad. Should I be worried?

    I have a dell 5030

    aples touchpad
    ati radeon 4250 video Card

    I had problem install any version of Ubuntu installing.May be the Video Card.

    I ended up installing Kubuntu 12.04 I get the apls setup.The only problem I have is getting a mouse to work right.

    You may want to try Ubuntu 12.04 Livecd.

  7. #7
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    Re: Just bought a laptop with an alps touchpad. Should I be worried?

    Quote Originally Posted by fred0843 View Post
    I have a dell 5030

    aples touchpad
    ati radeon 4250 video Card

    I had problem install any version of Ubuntu installing.May be the Video Card.

    I ended up installing Kubuntu 12.04 I get the apls setup.The only problem I have is getting a mouse to work right.

    You may want to try Ubuntu 12.04 Livecd.
    I did prior to installing and I noticed the lack of 2 finger scrolling and the option being grayed out. I simply installed Ubuntu 12.04 wondering if updates would fix it, but no dice.

    Any insight?

  8. #8
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    Re: Just bought a laptop with an alps touchpad. Should I be worried?

    Just checked Touchpad setup.Two finger scrolling is not grayed out.

    I'm using Kubuntu 12.04.I could not get Ubuntu 12.04 to install

  9. #9
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    Re: Just bought a laptop with an alps touchpad. Should I be worried?

    Quote Originally Posted by fred0843 View Post
    Just checked Touchpad setup.Two finger scrolling is not grayed out.

    I'm using Kubuntu 12.04.I could not get Ubuntu 12.04 to install
    Uh, really? That makes almost no sense. If Kubuntu installed Ubuntu should have been fine...

    At any rate, anybody else? Really would like to have two finger scrolling back...

  10. #10
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    Re: Just bought a laptop with an alps touchpad. Should I be worried?

    Hi Roasted,
    I'm thinking about picking up an refurb e4300 as well - did you ever get two finger scroll to work on it??

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