KDE on Toshiba Kirabook: unknown touchpad

Question

I have just bought a new Toshiba KiraBook, on which I have successfully installed Kubuntu 14.04 LTS, Uefi booting. Everything works out of the box (requires some work with font size, due to the UHD display), including the unknown touchpad:

  # xinput -list
  ⎡ Virtual core pointer                          id=2    [master pointer  (3)]
  ⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer                id=4    [slave  pointer  (2)]
  ⎜   ↳ TOS2008:00 06CB:78C0 UNKNOWN              id=14   [slave  pointer  (2)]
  ⎜   ↳ ELAN Touchscreen                          id=9    [slave  pointer  (2)]
  ⎣ Virtual core keyboard                         id=3    [master keyboard (2)]
  ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard               id=5    [slave  keyboard (3)]
↳ Power Button                              id=6    [slave  keyboard (3)]
↳ Video Bus                                 id=7    [slave  keyboard (3)]
↳ Power Button                              id=8    [slave  keyboard (3)]
↳ TOSHIBA Web Camera - HD                   id=10   [slave  keyboard (3)]
↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard              id=11   [slave  keyboard (3)]
↳ Toshiba input device                      id=12   [slave  keyboard (3)]

Strictly speaking, this works fine: what I am complaining about is that this unknown touchpad has no right button:

# grep synaptics /var/log/Xorg.0.log
[    425.795] (II) Using input driver 'synaptics' for 'TOS2008:00 06CB:78C0 UNKNOWN'
[   425.832] (--) synaptics: TOS2008:00 06CB:78C0 UNKNOWN: x-axis range 0 - 1201 (res 12)
[   425.832] (--) synaptics: TOS2008:00 06CB:78C0 UNKNOWN: y-axis range 0 - 648 (res 12)
[   425.832] (II) synaptics: TOS2008:00 06CB:78C0 UNKNOWN: device does not report pressure, will use touch data.
[   425.832] (II) synaptics: TOS2008:00 06CB:78C0 UNKNOWN: device does not report finger width.
[   425.832] (--) synaptics: TOS2008:00 06CB:78C0 UNKNOWN: buttons: left double triple
[   425.832] (--) synaptics: TOS2008:00 06CB:78C0 UNKNOWN: Vendor 0x6cb Product 0x78c0
[   425.832] (--) synaptics: TOS2008:00 06CB:78C0 UNKNOWN: invalid pressure range.  defaulting to 0 - 255
[   425.832] (--) synaptics: TOS2008:00 06CB:78C0 UNKNOWN: invalid finger width range.  defaulting to 0 - 15
[   425.832] (--) synaptics: TOS2008:00 06CB:78C0 UNKNOWN: touchpad found
[   425.852] (**) synaptics: TOS2008:00 06CB:78C0 UNKNOWN: (accel) MinSpeed is now constant deceleration 2.5
[   425.852] (**) synaptics: TOS2008:00 06CB:78C0 UNKNOWN: (accel) MaxSpeed is now 1.75
[   425.852] (**) synaptics: TOS2008:00 06CB:78C0 UNKNOWN: (accel) AccelFactor is now 0.147
[   425.853] (--) synaptics: TOS2008:00 06CB:78C0 UNKNOWN: touchpad found

(see the line that ends with buttons: left double triple). Scrolling, resizing, moving windows and highliting text with a single finger is a nuisance.

Is there any way to emulate the presence of a right finger? In other words, to remap two-finger operations?

Answer 1

I also had some problems with the touchpad on the Toshiba Kirabook. I'm using Mint 17.2.

My old laptop had physically separate click buttons. I wanted to emulate such buttons on the Kirabook.

Desired behaviour

• Touches in the bottom 20% of the pad are not registered as drag
• I can click on the bottom left corner, keep that finger stationary, then drag a second finger in the main area of the touchpad and that will click and drag
• I can single-finger click in the right half of the bottom 20% of the touchpad and that is the only way to right click.

Solution

The solution uses synclient. The changes seem to be over-written every startup, so I made a script for the following and ran it at startup.

synclient ClickPad=1 RightButtonAreaTop=500 RightButtonAreaLeft=577

• ClickPad=1 means I want to emulate separate click buttons. (A touchpad without physically separate buttons is a clickpad.)
• RightButtonAreaTop is the mount of space above the area I'm designating as the right click button. It's an absolute value, equal to 80% of my touchpad height. I think the touchpad height is given by the difference between BottomEdge and TopEdge when you run synclient -i
• RightButtonAreaLeft=577 is the horizontal midpoint of my touchpad. That's the average of LeftEdge and RightEdge when you enter synclient -i

Answer 2

After today's update, the touchpad started working as expected, i.e. by simulating the right button of the mouse, when two fingers are pressed on it.

The following snippet from /var/log/apt/history.log show the packages updated:

Start-Date: 2015-06-11 06:29:02 Commandline: apt-get -y dist-upgrade Install: linux-image-extra-3.13.0-54-generic:amd64 (3.13.0-54.91, automatic), linux-image-3.13.0-54-generic:amd64 (3.13.0-54.91, automatic), linux-headers-3.16.0-39:amd64 (3.16.0-39.53~14.04.1, automatic), linux-headers-3.13.0-54-generic:amd64 (3.13.0-54.91, automatic), linux-image-3.16.0-39-generic:amd64 (3.16.0-39.53~14.04.1, automatic), linux-headers-3.16.0-39-generic:amd64 (3.16.0-39.53~14.04.1, automatic), linux-headers-3.13.0-54:amd64 (3.13.0-54.91, automatic), linux-image-extra-3.16.0-39-generic:amd64 (3.16.0-39.53~14.04.1, automatic), linux-signed-image-3.16.0-39-generic:amd64 (3.16.0-39.53~14.04.1, automatic) Upgrade: linux-signed-image-generic-lts-utopic:amd64 (3.16.0.38.30, 3.16.0.39.31), linux-headers-generic:amd64 (3.13.0.53.60, 3.13.0.54.61), cups-core-drivers:amd64 (1.7.2-0ubuntu1.5, 1.7.2-0ubuntu1.6), qemu-system-common:amd64 (2.0.0+dfsg-2ubuntu1.11, 2.0.0+dfsg-2ubuntu1.13), cups-server-common:amd64 (1.7.2-0ubuntu1.5, 1.7.2-0ubuntu1.6), libgail-3-0:amd64 (3.10.8-0ubuntu1.4, 3.10.8-0ubuntu1.5), gir1.2-gtk-3.0:amd64 (3.10.8-0ubuntu1.4, 3.10.8-0ubuntu1.5), libcups2:amd64 (1.7.2-0ubuntu1.5, 1.7.2-0ubuntu1.6), libcups2:i386 (1.7.2-0ubuntu1.5, 1.7.2-0ubuntu1.6), cups-daemon:amd64 (1.7.2-0ubuntu1.5, 1.7.2-0ubuntu1.6), linux-image-generic-lts-utopic:amd64 (3.16.0.38.30, 3.16.0.39.31), libcupsmime1:amd64 (1.7.2-0ubuntu1.5, 1.7.2-0ubuntu1.6), cups-client:amd64 (1.7.2-0ubuntu1.5, 1.7.2-0ubuntu1.6), libcupsimage2:amd64 (1.7.2-0ubuntu1.5, 1.7.2-0ubuntu1.6), libnuma1:amd64 (2.0.9~rc5-1ubuntu3, 2.0.9~rc5-1ubuntu3.14.04.1), qemu-kvm:amd64 (2.0.0+dfsg-2ubuntu1.11, 2.0.0+dfsg-2ubuntu1.13), cups:amd64 (1.7.2-0ubuntu1.5, 1.7.2-0ubuntu1.6), libgtk-3-bin:amd64 (3.10.8-0ubuntu1.4, 3.10.8-0ubuntu1.5), qemu-keymaps:amd64 (2.0.0+dfsg-2ubuntu1.11, 2.0.0+dfsg-2ubuntu1.13), linux-signed-generic-lts-utopic:amd64 (3.16.0.38.30, 3.16.0.39.31), cups-bsd:amd64 (1.7.2-0ubuntu1.5, 1.7.2-0ubuntu1.6), libgtk-3-0:amd64 (3.10.8-0ubuntu1.4, 3.10.8-0ubuntu1.5), libpq-dev:amd64 (9.3.7-0ubuntu0.14.04, 9.3.8-0ubuntu0.4.04), libcupscgi1:amd64 (1.7.2-0ubuntu1.5, 1.7.2-0ubuntu1.6), libcupsppdc1:amd64 (1.7.2-0ubuntu1.5, 1.7.2-0ubuntu1.6), libgtk-3-common:amd64 (3.10.8-0ubuntu1.4, 3.10.8-0ubuntu1.5), cups-common:amd64 (1.7.2-0ubuntu1.5, 1.7.2-0ubuntu1.6), qemu-utils:amd64 (2.0.0+dfsg-2ubuntu1.11, 2.0.0+dfsg-2ubuntu1.13), qemu-system-x86:amd64 (2.0.0+dfsg-2ubuntu1.11, 2.0.0+dfsg-2ubuntu1.13), linux-generic-lts-utopic:amd64 (3.16.0.38.30, 3.16.0.39.31), cups-ppdc:amd64 (1.7.2-0ubuntu1.5, 1.7.2-0ubuntu1.6), linux-libc-dev:amd64 (3.13.0-53.89, 3.13.0-54.91), libpq5:amd64 (9.3.7-0ubuntu0.14.04, 9.3.8-0ubuntu0.4.04), linux-headers-generic-lts-utopic:amd64 (3.16.0.38.30, 3.16.0.39.31), linux-image-generic:amd64 (3.13.0.53.60, 3.13.0.54.61), linux-generic:amd64 (3.13.0.53.60, 3.13.0.54.61) End-Date: 2015-06-11 06:31:33

I think it most likely that the kernel update fixed the issue. In the end, installation to a Toshiba Kirabook of Ubuntu 14.04 LTS was essentially painless. All's well that ends well.