psmouse-dkms-alpsv7

Linux kernel driver for newer ALPS touchpads (as of Jan 2014)

QUICK START

Make sure you have dkms installed in your system:

    pacman -S dkms   #for archlinux

Run the following commands in your shell as root:

    cd /tmp
    git clone http://github.com/he1per/psmouse-dkms-alpsv7
    cd psmouse-dkms-alpsv7
    ./install.sh

This will build and install the updated psmouse module for your current kernel.

INTRODUCTION

Some new machines, like the Lenovo Ideapad Flex 15 have a new ALPS touchpad which uses a protocol different from previous versions. The linux kernel (as of 3.13) does not recognize them as an ALPS touchpad, and they end up being recognized only as a PS/2 mouse. For this reason there is no scrolling, no middle button emulation, no two finger recognition, etc.

The folks at the linux kernel input devices mailing list were very helpful and pointed me to the right patches, I have simply gathered them together and added a dkms.conf file to make it easier to build. This page (https://github.com/he1per/psmouse-dkms-alpsv7) explains how you install and build the module.

Thanks specially to Tommy Will from the linux-input@vger.kernel.org mailing list and to Elaine (Qiting) who actually wrote the code :) The original patch from Elaine is found here:

http://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-input/msg29084.html

DO I NEED THIS MODULE?

If you get an error like this from dmesg:

psmouse serio1: alps: Unknown ALPS touchpad: E7=73 03 0a, EC=88 b6 06

then you need this module. Your touchpad will be recognized after you install it.

BUILDING and INSTALLING

Pre-requisites:

• dkms:

   pacman -S dkms   #will install dkms in archlinux based distros
                    #use apt-get install dkms in debian or rpm 
                    # in redhat distros

• linux headers will be installed as a dependency if you use any of the commands above.

Manual build and install of psmouse.ko

It is better to use install.sh, but if you want to build and install manually you can follow these instructions.

As root do the following from the directory where this README is found: (all this is done automatically by the install.sh script)

    dkms add .  
    dkms build -m psmouse-dkms-alpsv7 -v 1.1  
    dkms install -m psmouse-dkms-alpsv7 -v 1.1
    modprobe psmouse