8.04: Non-responsive touchpad on Penryn MacBook Pro

[seaward]

I'm getting no response from the touchpad on my MacBook Pro [Penryn, Feb 2008] using the Synaptics Driver.

I've got the Input Device set up in my xorg.conf, including the "SHMConfig" "True" option, yet gsynaptics tells me I still need to add the line.

Am I barking up the wrong tree here? Is there another driver I should be aware of?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[cyberdork33]

I'm getting no response from the touchpad on my MacBook Pro [Penryn, Feb 2008] using the Synaptics Driver.

I've got the Input Device set up in my xorg.conf, including the "SHMConfig" "True" option, yet gsynaptics tells me I still need to add the line.

Am I barking up the wrong tree here? Is there another driver I should be aware of?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

there is no driver for the multitouch stuff yet.

Check this daemon out:
http://tannewt.org/touch/

[seaward]

Cheers for the pointer, cyberdork. I'd read about this elsewhere, but I'm not looking to engage Multitouch features just yet, simply being able to use the trackpad would be a start. Booting into the 8.04 LiveCD, for example, renders the trackpad workable, however I literally get no response from it when running my Ubuntu installtion.

I had a look in my Xorg.0.log and confirmed what I thought might be happening: the Synaptics driver is refusing to load for whatever reason. Here are the relevant lines:

(II) Synaptics touchpad driver version 0.14.6 (1406)
Synaptics Touchpad no synaptics event device found (checked 22 nodes)
(**) Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
(**) Option "HorizEdgeScroll" "0"
Query no Synaptics: 6003C8
(EE) Synaptics Touchpad no synaptics touchpad detected and no repeater device
(EE) Synaptics Touchpad Unable to query/initialize Synaptics hardware.
(EE) PreInit failed for input device "Synaptics Touchpad"
(II) UnloadModule: "synaptics"

I'm going to try uninstalling and then reinstalling the driver and see if that helps.

EDIT: Reinstalling xorg synaptics driver didn't do anything. Any other suggestions for what I could try?

[cyberdork33]

curious, is appletouch loaded?

[seaward]

As far as I'm aware, no. I've checked through dmesg and my xorg.0.log and can find no mention of appletouch. I've been googling around the subject but can't find any definitive posts on how to go about installing it either. What's the correct method?

[cyberdork33]

As far as I'm aware, no. I've checked through dmesg and my xorg.0.log and can find no mention of appletouch. I've been googling around the subject but can't find any definitive posts on how to go about installing it either. What's the correct method?

It is part of the kernel and is the low-level hardware interface for the touchpad. you can see if it is loaded with lsmod and if not, try

sudo modprobe appletouch

then try loading synaptics again.

[seaward]

In an effort to get the ball rolling, and before I had read your reply, I reinstalled the Ubuntu Kernel using Update Manager. This brought my touchpad back to life, so a step in the right direction even though I've lost Fn key support again. Appletouch was not running when I rebooted the computer after reinstalling the kernel. I installed it with modprobe and it then appeared in the lsmod output.

After this I installed gsynaptics, edited the xorg.conf to include SHMConfig et al and then logged out from and restarted X.

The touchpad is working still but gsynaptics is telling me it can't access the shared memory area, implying SHMConfig is not set to True.

My Xorg log is also still delivering much the same error as it was before, except this time the Synaptics module seems to load fine, as shown here:

(II) LoadModule: "synaptics"
(II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/input//synaptics_drv.so
(II) Module synaptics: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
	compiled for 4.3.99.902, module version = 1.0.0
	Module class: X.Org XInput Driver
	ABI class: X.Org XInput driver, version 2.0

but then the driver goes on to report, later in the log:

(II) Synaptics touchpad driver version 0.14.6 (1406)
Synaptics Touchpad no synaptics event device found (checked 23 nodes)
(**) Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
(**) Option "SHMConfig" "True"
Query no Synaptics: 6003C8
(EE) Synaptics Touchpad no synaptics touchpad detected and no repeater device
(EE) Synaptics Touchpad Unable to query/initialize Synaptics hardware.
(EE) PreInit failed for input device "Synaptics Touchpad"
(II) UnloadModule: "synaptics"

I've altered the Device option, assuming the Trackpad to not be located at /dev/psaux but this didn't affect anything.

[cyberdork33]

well, I don't know what reloading the kernel did for you, but it is apparently working. I don't think synaptics works with the multitouch pads. hence the reason for the daemon discussed before, and probably the reason for the messages. See the note in the Macbook Air wiki page which has the same touchpad hardware (or at least close to the same). https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Macbook_Air

If you have the basic functions working, the only want to enable other functions is to use the touchd daemon.

[seaward]

I don't think synaptics works with the multitouch pads. hence the reason for the daemon discussed before, and probably the reason for the messages.

Yes indeed, I realised this soon after posting, it was pointless to mention all of the Synaptics errors. Many thanks for your time, Cyberdork.

[seaward]

It seems recompiling the Kernel to give Fn support is the culprit here. I am clearly missing something in the process. I cannot for the life of me imagine what it could be, though - I'm recompiling a generic Ubuntu kernel which matches the version in Update Manager. I've started the appletouch module but the touchpad still isn't registering.

Truly odd. If anyone has any suggestions for additions/changes I could try in order to get the touchpad working again, I would be very grateful.