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Compaq nw9440 xorg.conf: Support for multiple input devices

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  • Compaq nw9440 xorg.conf: Support for multiple input devices

Like many laptops, the Compaq nw9440 has a Synaptics touchpad. If you want to scroll like the big boys, which is to say with the right side of the touchpad, then you need to make some changes to your xorg.conf. I also use a USB pointer (Logitech TrackMan Wheel, the second generation Marble) and I wanted to be able to use both at once, either/or, et cetera. The touchpad can supposedly be used pressure-sensitively in The GIMP, which is another possible motivation.

Below are the relevant sections of my xorg.conf:

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "Layout0"
    Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
    InputDevice    "Synaptics Touchpad"
    InputDevice    "Other Mice"
EndSection

And a bit lower (but it could be anywhere really) we have:

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier     "Synaptics Touchpad"
    Driver         "synaptics"
    Option         "SendCoreEvents" "true"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/psaux"
    Option         "Protocol" "auto-dev"
    Option         "HorizScrollDelta" "0"
    Option         "SHMConfig" "on"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier      "Other Mice"
        Driver          "mouse"
        Option          "Device"                "/dev/input/mice"
        Option          "Protocol"              "ImPS/2"
        Option          "ZAxisMapping"          "4 5"
EndSection

If you want to scroll, you need the synaptics driver. It is installed as a PS/2 device on this system (which does not have any external PS/2 ports) which is why the device is /dev/psaux. Setting SHMConfig to on allows you to use the synclient program (or possibly gsynaptics, ksynaptics, etc) to change runtime parameters on the fly so that you can change the touchpad's behavior, but there's a whole long list of options you can set right in your xorg.conf as well. I provide some options (leeched from someone else's config) which you could play with, but I can't speak for any of them because as you can see from my real live working xorg.conf (attached) they are all commented out. I have what I wanted, so I stop here.

Attachment Size
xorg.conf.gz (2.4 KB) 2.4 KB
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