Enabling trackpad scrolling in Xandros?

[gIzzE]

I have had a problem with my ibook cd drive and took it apart the otherday and whilst waiting for a new drive to turn up again I got out my old Vaio.
I got so jarred off with windows that I downloaded Xandros 3 this morning, evrything is great with it and I am amazed at how user friendly this distro is compared with the last time I was using a linux distro, probably Suse 6.3!
This is as easy if not easier than windows to install and comes with everthing you really need built in, and the boot loader is superb too, I have left WinXP on the C: drive just in case it is needed for something, can't think what though.

The only problem I have is the trackpad on my Vaio allows me to scroll in windows, and there is an app for OSX called sidetrack that allows the same. Is there a way to get this working with Xandros?

[kernow]

http://leapster.org/linux/vaio/

according to this , the vaio trackpad is detected and is just a ps2 mouse, if this is the case its just a matter of editing your X11 config (/etc/X11/xfree86.conf or /etc/X11/xorg.conf) and editing this in the mouse section.



Section "InputDevice"

# Identifier and driver

Identifier "Mouse1"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/mouse"
Option "Buttons" "5"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5


notice the "Buttons" line and the "ZAxisMapping" line, they are the important ones to add, you probably have the rest already, try this method at least.

if not you might need to download a newer kernel package from the xandros site, if they dont have binary packages you could always roll your own with specific support (from kernel.org)

hope this helps

[kernow]

it seems after a bit of googling that the touchpad the VAIO's use is just an ALPS touchpad , which is fully supported.

http://compass.com/synaptics/

it mentions this , for specific X window support

http://web.telia.com/~u89404340/touchpad/

http://web.telia.com/~u89404340/touchpad/xorg.conf (example x config)

seems there may be some kernel patches >_< - but they made have been merged in to the default kernel source by now.

[gIzzE]

Thanks for that, that will keep me busy tonight!

Now why can't they make it easier to load new drivers?

[kernow]

they can, depends on your default kernel and what modules it has installed

I have support for basically anything that goes in, because its a fat kernel with 1000 modules.

good luck!

[gIzzE]

Kernow, what distro would you recommend for someone who really doesn't know what they are doing when it comes to compiling drivers?

Seriously, I am so jarred off with windows after going back to it for less than a week while my ibook is sitting on the floor in bits, but it is little things like this touchpad that makes Linux tricky, if I had someone to show me what to do once I would be fine, but any how to's I find have so many links in them that you end up getting lost.

So is there a better distro available or is it just a case of having a bash and if you mess up re install and start again?

[kernow]

theres no reason to reinstall when you mess up

I think that comes from the windows methodology

try unbuntu, or kubuntu, or fedora core 4, they might just pick it up straight away