Mouse (touchpad) speed adjustment not working (and other small things)

[Timmi]

updated

Hi! I'm trying Sparky 4.9 minimal GUI 32bit for the first time today
for my kid's eeePC 1000he, intel Atom N280, 2GB, 1024 x 600/768.

1. Touchpad (Mouse), speed and acceleration settings, changes have no effect.
Normally, this works no problem with the original XP and some distros I've tried on it.
Can you please tell me what I can do to make this work?  By default, mouse is far too high-res and it takes forever to cross the screen.

2. Firefox via Synaptic: dependency issue:
I wanted to download Firefox in Synaptic, but it gave me an error message about "unresolved dependencies".
Scrolling down through the list on that error message, there was one of the dependencies: "libvpx5 not installable"
APTus says the OS is too old for the package.  Perhaps there is a mismatch, and it's trying to install the wrong libvpx5 file for this version of the OS.

3. additional language keyboard layoutss:
Maybe I haven't looked in enough places, but all I found for languages was in APTus but when I click on it nothing happens.  I would like to add French (Quebec, not France) and German Keyboard Layouts.

4. Wishful thinking: 
on this netbook, the display is, physically, 1024x600, however, the chip has an addressing mode of 1024x768.
It will display your screen in one of 3 modes on the screen, and you can toggle that with the Fn keys (just as you toggle brightness, sound, etc.)... 
The modes are: just plain 1024x600,  or 1024x768 compressed onto 1024x600, and finally 1024x768 that is not crushed and uses automatic vertical panning (when the pointer approaches the top or bottom of the screen).

5. Dual-displays:  I presume there is no problem managing 2 monitors that have different resolutions (if I decided to use this on my laptop as well) ?


PS: I was delighted to see that it only uses 86-89MB after boot (depending on the USB w.persistence file size I used), 114MB with the firewall and WiFi connected, and 126MB with Otter loaded.  Although it can seem a bit laggy on this machine - CPU usage peeks at 77-88% sometimes, and varies 0%-4% at idle.

[paxmark1]

1.  What version libinput?
is it 0.23.0-2 ? You can check via command line as below, I don't use synaptic. 

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aptitude show xserver-xorg-input-libinput                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
Package: xserver-xorg-input-libinput                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
Version: 0.23.0-2                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
State: installed                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               
Automatically installed: yes       

Hopefully you do not have the other synaptics installed
xserver-xorg-input-synaptics        has not had any updates in years.  That is what I had to struggle with on my eee901a years ago. 

Good background info at
http://sparkylinux.org/forum/index.php/topic,4687.msg12007.html#msg12007

2.  firefox-esr or firefox?
on Debian stable (what 4.9 in based on) computer I have

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unes:~$ aptitude show firefox-esr
Package: firefox-esr                     
Version: 60.4.0esr-1~deb9u1 

Not 3 but -
I always use command line to update, upgrade -
but aptus is pretty slick.  I would urge you to use aptus instead of synaptic in Sparky. 

peace out,

[Timmi]

(updated)

I just used the stock Synaptics package manager that comes in the OS.

Firefox was just Firefox, not esr.

I found the FF install icon in APTus, and it gives the error "Your version of operating system is too old to install the package."  I assure you that I downloaded this just 1 day ago.
And I know there still is a 32bit version of FF for Linux - I checked on their website.  So perhaps Sparky has an error in the linked items for the installer for 32bit?

Thanks for the tip on APTus.  We'll have to take some time to explore that.  It looks interesting. 
(sorry about the previous misunderstanding - I thought you were referring to something like apt get from the cli)

[Timmi]

and here is the output regarding Libinput:

live@live:~$ aptitude show xserver-xorg-input-libinput
Package: xserver-xorg-input-libinput     
Version: 0.23.0-2
State: installed
Automatically installed: yes
Priority: optional
Section: x11
Maintainer: Debian X Strike Force <debian-x@lists.debian.org>
Architecture: i386
Uncompressed Size: 122 k
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.7), libinput10 (>= 1.5.0), xorg-input-abi-24,
         xserver-xorg-core (>= 2:1.18.99.901)
Provides: xorg-driver-input
Description: X.Org X server -- libinput input driver
This package provides the driver for input devices using libinput library. It
can handle keyboards, mice and touchpads, and essentially replaces the separate
-evdev and -synaptics drivers.
  This package is built from the X.org xf86-input-libinput driver module.
_____________________________________________________________

Chromium and Midori installed as expected though.

[paxmark1]

libinput -- good. 

I forgot to ask - Have you performed a full upgrade?  A "safe" upgrade might not have been enough.

This machine has no touchpad.  So I ssh -X into my working atom. 

Hopefully you installed xinput from the listed forum thread  http://sparkylinux.org/forum/index.php/topic,4687.msg12007.html#msg12007

if not install, "sudo apt install xinput" in a terminal will work.  Or via aptus or via synaptic (gui upgrader)  (Please remember that in this overall conversation Synaptic can refer to two very different things)

ssh -X gives different output than the output on the actual screen on atom.      This would show you the basic output.

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xinput list
⎡ Virtual core pointer                          id=2    [master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer                id=4    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Areson USB Device                         id=9    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Logitech M215 2nd Gen                     id=11   [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)]
    ↳ Dell Dell USB Entry Keyboard              id=10   [slave  keyboard (3)]


You will probaly see a
"enter icon"   SynPS/2 Synaptics Touchpad          under virtual core xtest pointer.   (Unless its an Alps or something else).

You can start viewing searches on search engine via
set-prop SynPS/2      (then add) sensitivity  (then maybe add)  debian   and look at possible solutions.  You do not need the newest searches, you are in Debian stable and you have old hardware. 

There might be a way to adjust your touchpad in your DE (Desktop Environment) under system preferences, but probably not. 

If others post a way they have used, I would go with them, as long as they do not talk about synclient. 

The Debian wikis are not the most helpful or thought out on this specific issue. 

For over all information on touchpad configuration a good source is

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Touchpad_Synaptics#Console_tools

Warning: xf86-input-synaptics is no longer actively updated. If possible, use libinput.

I have not had to adjust this on any atoms since libinput, so I am not telling you how to do it.  I will be working 14 plus hour days for a bit and will not reply for awhile.  Hopefully others can. 

[Timmi]

Thank you very much Paxman1.   Try not to work too hard, try to get some rest, and Merry Christmas!
No I didn't do an upgrade.  I will look into all those suggestions.
And I didn't install anything - mouse drivers should be in all distros in this day and age - and they are. 

The pointer works.  It's not like there's nothing there to drive it.

It's just the speed adjustment component that seems to be missing or defective.

This may be a bug/issue that should be looked into by the developers.