The ALPS company started providing a new kind of touchpad device but they will not release the information required to create a driver for it. As a result, the Linux user community is struggling with what to do. The device not recognized properly by the kernel, some of its functionality is missing, and, worst of all, while one is typing, the cursor randomly repositions itself. Some people are so frustrated they have created scripts to simply disable the device.
I've been studying this a long time. There are many threads on it in bug-trackers, here is the best one:
RedHat bug tracker
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=590880
The Linux kernel:
https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=14660
In Ubuntu, there are several separate threads about it
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/678103
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/784965
https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/308191
Gentoo Linux
http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=318567
As of July 23, 2011 (happy birthday to me), here we stand.
We've checked with Dell, a prominent user of these devices, and with ALPS. The end conclusion is this. ALPS denies responsibility. Dell says they contracted with ALPS for the device and for Windows drivers, but no LInux drivers. Dell has encouraged ALPS to help, and they have circulated a series of patches to fix some of the most glaring problems. There does not appear to be any effort at ALPS to create a truly functional multi-touch driver, but the patches that are released so far do fix the most horrible problems that we experience.
This is "intellimouse emulation mode" driver I'm using now:
https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/350841
Call that the "psmouse" patch. If you want to patch your kernel, it is a pretty easy chore. For your distribution, download the package source, patch it, and compile one small driver, and copy into the OS. There are good instructions here: http://budts.be/weblog/2010/12/dell-latitude-e6510-screen-and-touchpad and http://mikebeach.org/2011/04/correctly-recognize-alps-touchpad-on-dell-e...
1. The right side scroll does work. Tap to click does work. Double-click to "grab" does work.
2. ESPECIALLY GOOD NEWS: while typing, random brushes against the touchpad do
not change the cursor position in the text. At least in a Firefox window typing
this, and the editor LyX, I can type with one hand and brush the touchpad all I
want and the point where I am typing "stays put". The cursor does move on the
screen, but it no longer steals the focal point.
3. Recognition is not so obviously wrong:
$ less /proc/bus/input/devices | more
I: Bus=0011 Vendor=0002 Product=0008 Version=7326
N: Name="AlpsPS/2 ALPS GlidePoint"
P: Phys=isa0060/serio1/input0
S: Sysfs=/devices/platform/i8042/serio1/input/input6
U: Uniq=
H: Handlers=mouse0 event6
B: PROP=0
B: EV=7
B: KEY=70000 0 0 0 0
B: REL=103
Here are the bad parts. I am not able to configure this thing at all.
1. $ synclient -l
Couldn't find synaptics properties. No synaptics driver loaded?
2. Gnome mouse config tool does not find it: the app under System /
Preferences / Mouse does not find a Touchpad device.
I have recently had problems with suspend on this laptop, and there were reports last year of complications with the psmouse patch and suspend, but I do not know if it is a factor.
The main message is this. The touchpad device can be made to work in a reasonable way if you install the psmouse patch.
This patch has not been adopted by most linux distributions, you have to do it yourself. There are competing explanations for that. One is that the driver is still not very good, in a programming and design sense. Another is that the distributions are trying to put pressure on ALPS to release the information required to enable the creation of a truely multi-touch touchpad driver.