Laptop Notes

• The Touchpad
• Wireless Networking
• Start Networking By Hand
• Related Resources:

Section index - KB index

The Touchpad

Generally one would select the ALPS ~GlidePoint driver during installation. This driver works for the ~GlidePoint as well as the popular Synaptics Touchpad. But you could manually do so by running the command "mouseconf" as root.

If you are satisfied with the way your touchpad works as it is, then there is no reason to do anything else. But there is a program called "tpconfig" which provides some configurable options for your touchpad.

tpconfig as of version 3.1.2 supports options such as disabling tapping, relative vs absolute movement, and sleep mode. You may want to install this if you think the tapping is too sensitive. Currently there's no adjustment for sensitivity but it is possible to just turn it off completely.
Installating the RPM should work flawlessly.

Here is a list of tpconfig options not provided on the webpage: = = = tpconfig version: 3.1.2 = = = = Synaptics Touchpad and ALPS ~GlidePad/Stickpointer configuration tool = = = = Copyright (C) 1997 C. Scott Ananian [email protected] = = Copyright (C) 1998-2001 Bruce Kall [email protected] = = Last Modified (Version 3.1.2) by Bruce Kall, 4/23/2001 = = = = tpconfig comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. This is free software, = = and you are welcome to redistribute it under the terms of the GPL. = = = ========================================================================

Usage: tpconfig {OPTION}… Configure a Synaptics ~TouchPad.

-i, ––info display current ~TouchPad configuration -x, ––reset perform a software reset on the ~TouchPad -q, ––quiet, ––silent suppress verbose output

-a display absolute/relative mode ––absolute, ––relative set absolute/relative mode -r, ––rate={0,1} display/set reporting rate 0 = normal, 1 = high -t, ––tapmode={0-1} display/set tapping mode: 0 = no tap gestures 1 = tap and drag -s, ––sleep={0-1} display/set sleep mode: 0 = disable, 1 = enable

––help display this help and exit ––version output version information

Report bugs to [email protected]

1. don't really know what the sleep mode option does. You'll have to ask the author of the program.

And here is the readme file, also not linked to from the webpage. There's no man page for it, so I'm hoping that putting this on the web will make it easier to find for some people. tpconfig is a package to drive support for the Synaptics ~TouchPad and ALPS Glidepad/Stickpointer under various flavors of UNIX, although Linux is currently the primary target.

Linux does not like to share the PS/2 port. Currently you must kill gpm before invoking tpconfig. For the same reason, tpconfig will not currently run under X.

Suggested usage is to invoke tpconfig with your desired options immediately before launching gpm in your startup sequence.

e.g., tpconfig ––tapmode=0

The file 'touchpad' can be placed in /etc/rc.d/init.d (or whereever your system startup scripts are stored) and then linking to it in the correct directory for a particular run level.

TO DEBUG PROBLEMS:

a) bring up your system in single user mode. b) run tpconfig manually (without gpm and X running).

If it still does not work, set DEBUG_LEVEL = DEBUG_HIGH and pipe the output into a file to send to me ([email protected]).

Read the file COPYING to learn the terms under which this software is distributed. Read INSTALL for installation instructions.

Mail suggestions and bug reports for this package to [email protected]. Please include the package version number, which you can get by running "tpconfig ––version".

Current maintainer is: Bruce Kall: [email protected] null

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        4. it says that once you install it, it will disable tapping for you.
           If you want to configure other stuff, you have to boot the system to the console first, kill "gpm" (the console server) as 'root' withnullnullnull
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  service gpm stop

  , and then run

  tpconfig

  .

  Configuring 3-button-emulation would be nice for Mandrake Linux users.
  Red Hat's mouse configuration program allows 3-button-emulation for anything. To enable it (so you can paste what's in the clipboard with the 3rd button) just open up '/etc/X11/XF86Config-4' with a text editor as root. Under the input section should be the pointer section. Add these two lines:

  Option "Emulate3Buttons" option "Emulate3Timeout 50"

  If that doesn't work, e.g. because of Mandrake resetting 'XF86Config-4' back to its default configuration for the ALPS Glidepoint, try changing your mouse type to 'generic' with

  mouseconfig

  . This should also get Mandrake Linux to add the 3-Button emulation settings to the 'XF86Config-4' file and keep them there. The touchpad should continue working.

  section index - top

  Wireless Networking

  Most distributions come with all the drivers for wireless networking precompiled as modules.
  The problem I ran into was autodetection loading a different driver than it should. Another problem was Mandrake Linux' '~DrakNet' not quite working 100% well with them.

  To fix the first problem all you have to do is edit the '/etc/pcmcia/wireless.opts' file as 'root', find your card, and change the

  bind {driver name}

  line under that section to the correct name.

  For example I have the 'Dell ~TrueMobile' card, which is an Orinoco device.
  I could have changed the settings in "wireless.opts" but instead I went over to the Orinoco driver webpage and downloaded 'hermes.conf' to '/etc/pcmcia/'.
  This file tells the 'pcmcia' service to load the correct and pre-installed driver "orinoco_cs" for my card. Then I went back to "wireless.opts" and entered the "ESSID" into the network ID it belonged to. I put that in the very first section, which is intended to be used by any wireless card you plug into the computer.

  For more information about schemes and the

  cardctl

  command, see the sample 'wireless.opts' file (actually named "PCMCIA.txt" at the website) on the Orinoco driver website.

  cardctl scheme {schemename}

  loads up predefined settings for the card.

  To activate the network connection enter this as root:

  ifup eth1

  (or

  eth0

  )

  There's is also a software package called 'wireless-tools' (also available from the Orinoco page, if you want to read more about it).
  It allows you to configure the card and also get some statistics. If you run Mandrake Linux 8.1, the RPM can be found on CD1 of the download edition.

  section index - top

  Start Networking By Hand

  Sometimes you may want to start up networking yourself, if it didn't happen at boot time, or became disconnected for any reason.

  Mandriva provides "Net Applet" to help with this. If it is running, you will see an icon in the taskbar with two wires displaying whether you are connected or not. If it's not running, look in the menu system under "System: Monitoring".

  By right-clicking on this applet, you can start and stop a specific interface and switch between networking profiles.

  Your computer may have more than one network interface, perhaps "eth0" is your ethernet adapter and "eth1" is for a wireless card. You may need to check "Configure Network" through Net Applet to see which is which.

  Perhaps in a future version of Mandriva Net Applet will simply state "eth0 (ethernet)" and "eth1 (wifi)" to make this clearer.

  section index - top

  Related Resources:

  Touchpad Config Home Page
  The ~WaveLan/Orinoco Drivers Page
  Laptop HOWTO

  Revision / Modified: Dec. 18, 2001
  Author: (remove first '2') and Tom Berger

  Legal: This page is covered by the GNU Free Documentation License. Standard disclaimers of warranty apply. Copyright LSTB and Mandrakesoft.