Compaq Presario 1800

Forum: Laptops
Topic: Compaq Presario 1800
started by: writeson

Posted by writeson on June 21 2004,21:46

Hi all,
I've installed DSL 0.7.1 on a Compaq Presario 1800 with 128 Mb ram and a 6 GB hard drive. This wasn't that easy as the machine didn't want to boot from CD. But I managed to burn the image to a floppy using rawwrite and then did the harddrive install. However, I'm not having any luck getting the touchpad to work. The cursor comes up on the screen, but the moment you move it gets locked to the bottom of the screen where I can see the 'point' moving around horizontally n response to the touchpad, but that's it. Does nyone know what I should set in XF86Config (or wherever) to get this working?

Thanks
Doug

Posted by ke4nt1 on June 21 2004,23:59

I have this same issue on one of my compaq laptops as well.
My temp solution is to use a serial mouse with it.

In DSL, there is not any XF86 , since it uses the XTiny/KDrive
xservers for X-window usage.

At this time, I have not found a solution to this.

Recently, at freshmeat.net , some new files for
the synaptic touchpad were posted, but I'm not sure
they would be of any help to DSL, since they were for XF86.
[EDIT]
Maybe this will help someone come up with a fix...
http://www.pps.jussieu.fr/~jch/software/presario/
...near the bottom of the page....
[/EDIT]

73
ke4nt

Posted by writeson on June 22 2004,17:43

k34nt,

Thanks for the reply. Hmmmmmm dsl doesn't use XF86Config, but I see one on /etc/X11 on my hardrive? Does the xtiny have a confiiguration file somewhere?

I haven't figured out how to use the touchpad yet. I booted up knoppix on the same laptop and the touchpad worked fine. I tried putting some configuration information from knoppix to the dsl laptop, but no help yet.

Thanks,
Doug

Posted by writeson on June 25 2004,14:41

Hi all,

I've temporarily resolved this issue by reinstalling DSL and having it use a USB mouse, which is working very well. I find this much more comfortable to work with than a mouse anyway, but I'd still like to get the touchpad working for "road warrior" work. So, I'll keep working on this.

On another topic, anyone had any experience installing Python on a DSL system?

Thanks,
Doug

Posted by ke4nt1 on June 25 2004,15:21

You can apt-get the python 2.3 from the debian mirrors.
Also, roberts had added to the repository the python base.
It is listed as 'python.tar.gz' , and can be added to the
'/' of your live cd, and will run upon bootup, or, placed in
the '/' of your HDInstall, and again, will load during bootup.

Another way is to rename it from .tar.gz to .tgz, and use
the mydsl button in emelfm to load it from desktop.

73 de Kent
ke4nt

Posted by roberts on June 25 2004,19:25

For what is worth, I recently loaded DSL on a old off brand notebook. It is an Abacus 5033. 32MB 800x600 4GB HD with touchpad. I couldn't get the touchpad to work. The aux port was ps2 and external mouse worked OK. I found looking in the BIOS an entry for Pointing Device which was set to ps2. I was able to change the BIOS entry to touchpad. The touchpad now works.

Posted by AwPhuch on June 25 2004,21:42

Quote

TouchPad + 4-way pad: works

In X-Window it works as a PS/2 device, so just remember to include PS/2 support into the kernel (comes with all distros) and set in XF86Config the PS/2 protocol. This is the easiest way to get the TouchPad working, but it'll work in a very simple mode and the 4-way-pad bellow it won't work at all.

If you want the 4-way pad to work and have extra features on the TouchPad (like scrolling by moving your finger on the right edge of the pad, and 1, 2 or 3 finger tapping acting like left, right or center mouse clicks), you'll have to install a recent gpm version. The version currently distributed with Debian SID (1.19.something) WON'T WORK. You'll have to use at least 1.20.0, while I've done all my tests with 1.20.1rc1 + patches. Here is what you have to do:

Download the latest gpm version from < here >.
Look at the mail list here and download the latest patches by Peter Berg Larsen. This is the one i've been using for gpm-1.20.1rc1.
Compile and install it.
Configure it to use the synps2 protocol and repeat in imps2 mode (/etc/gpm.conf).
Copy this gpm-syn.conf file in /etc.
Restart gpm.

Configure the mouse in X-Window to use /dev/gpmdata and the ImPS/2 protocol (like this).
Restart gdm/xdm/whatever.

You can also try tpconfig (it comes with Debian), an utility for tweaking some options of the TouchPad. I haven't messed with it much, so I'm not sure about what can it do.

Another option, if you don't want to fiddle with gpm, is using this Synaptics Touchpad driver for XFree86. It woks great, but of course, it's a X-only solution. You won't have all the nifty features while you work on the console with gpm

from < http://www.bisente.com/documentos/presario905/index.en.html >

hope that helps

Brian
AwPhuch