MEPIS Community Forum

One of the nice things of the Liquorix kernel is, that it enabled multitouch on the touchpad of my laptop - configurable through System Settings > Input Devices > Touchpad. However I had an issue with the Liquorix kernel that made me switch back to the default MEPIS kernel. When running the default kernel, "two finger horizontal/vertical" scrolling are greyed out in System Settings, as well as two/three finger tap. So no multitouch. :-(

I've tried all sorts of settings in xorg.conf - without effect. I don't know if I did something wrong or if it's just not possible. :-\

Then I read this post at the Ubuntu forums with instruction on getting multitouch to work with the xinput tool, and... it just works!

What I did:

• Install xinput
• Run xinput --list and xinput --list-props "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad", and set some properties manually to see if it works. (Note that the device name will be different if you have another type of touchpad!)
• Create a script as given in the url above, make it executable (chmod 755 touchpad.sh).
• Run the script to see if it works
• Add the script to KDE auto-start: System Settings > Startup and shutdown > Autostart > Add script and add as symlink. You can also just copy or move the script to ~/.kde/Autostart/.

Here's my script, it's almost the same as the original: (I also enabled horizontal two-finger scrolling)



Now I have two finger vertical and horizontal scrolling, and a two finger tap simulates a middle mouse click. Cool! The only thing that doesn't work is a three finger tap for right click (which did work with Liquorix) - but I can live without that, and I feel pretty weird touching my touchpad with three fingers at the same time anyway. :-D

Edit: changed two-finger width to 6 and jumpy cursor threshold to 100 for more sensitivity. (Not modified in the script above.) Works great in combination with smooth scrolling in Firefox! But some people may find these values too sensitive, so adjust to your own liking.

It might be worth a lot to put a slightly edited version of your post in the Wiki.

Done! Any comments welcome.

Looks great!
It's not necessary to be root?

Thanks! Everything described can be run as a regular user - I'll clarify in the wiki.

Good job! I added a Touchpad entry under the Hardware link off the home page, and a redirect for a search on "touchpad"

Good Afternoon Arjen;

I think you should be commended for the work you did and the fact that you added it here and to the Wiki for us all to use. Others should take notice. So you are hear by officially commended. That and a few dollars or more should enable you to buy a cup of coffee, hot chocolate, or tea perhaps.

Thank you for the nice words, Frank!