Notebook touchpad dilemma

[The Termite]

I am about 6 hours new to Linux having worked with Microsoft tomfoolery the run our company's network. They have demanded research into Linux because of their interest in purchasing a new IBM server that runs on Linux. Needless to say, I have read a lot of documentation on Linux and decided to install Slackware 8 on a Gateway Solo 2150 laptop so that I could poke around. I found that the installation went smoothly, and so far, I absolutely love Linux.

Here's the problem, though. XFree86 does not seem to have support for the Synaptics touchpad that these laptops have. I was able to track down a Linux driver for the Synaptics touchpad at www.synaptics.com. (http://www.synaptics.com.) But I honestly have no idea how to "install" this driver. I checked it out, and the synaptics package seems to be installed. I followed the instructions in the readme and install files, but it still seems like the touchpad freaks out. Am I supposed to remove the old PS/2 mouse scheme and then execute the installation? If so, how?

Please keep in mind that I have basically no knowledge of BASH commands

[furrycat]

Hmm, touchpads tend to "just work." Make sure you have PS/2 mouse support in your kernel (maybe use the command "modprobe psaux" depending on your kernel version) and tell X to use the PS/2 device in your XF86Config (/etc/X11/XF86Config for default Slackware install - I move it to /etc 'cos it's too long to type):


Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse1"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "PS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/mouse"


Then you need to make /dev/mouse a symlink /dev/psaux: "ln -sf psaux /dev/mouse" or you could replace the device name with /dev/psaux in the config file directly.

Note that I really am suggesting not using the tpconfig tool at all. Maybe you need to but I've never seen a touchpad that didn't work with the standard PS/2 code. Your Mileage, of course, May Vary.

[The Termite]

I am so totally sorry. I thought it would be harder than that. I am such a dork! I didn't configure XFree86 correctly. A more detailed explaination would be that I specified a 2 button serial mouse as /dev/mouse versus a PS2 mouse. After I changed the device, things worked fantastic. Next time I'll try to pay more attention to what I'm doing before whining. Thanks man.