OpenBSD Journal

Preparing multitouch support - request for tests

Contributed by phessler on from the let-the-diff-touch-you dept dept.

Ulf Brosziewski (bru@) writes to tech@:
The diffs below contain a complete and extensive rewrite of the input-processing parts of wsmouse and the interface it provides to the hardware drivers. It prepares the support for various kinds of multitouch input, as well as an extended support for touchpads by wsmouse.
Tests for regression with all kinds of "pointing devices" would be welcome. Only a small set of touchpads and USB mice is available to me, which is a somewhat uncomfortable situation when you are working on things like this.

Please note that the first diff is for the synaptics driver in xenocara, the rest is for the kernel. Patching that driver will be necessary if you test with touchpads (and compiling it requires the modified version of wsconsio.h in /usr/include/dev/wscons/).

In most drivers I have made only short and trivial changes, the Elantech-v4 part of pms is the only one that makes full use of the new MT functions.

Unlike the basic input layer, which I hope is already fairly stable, the in-kernel touchpad support is in a more experimental stage. If you have a Synaptics, ALPS, or Elantech-v4 touchpad, you could test it by adding this xorg.conf to /etc:

Section "InputClass"
     Identifier "wstpad"
     Driver "ws"
     MatchIsTouchPad "true"
EndSection

Only a default configuration will be available with this. It enables two-finger-scrolling and a lower soft-button area for clickpads, and two-finger- or edge-scrolling for touchpads (support for tapping and upper soft-button areas is implemented, but it won't be enabled by the automatic configuration). If this works, it would also be interesting for me to know whether the defaults for pointer speed and acceleration are decent.

Of course I'm not only interested in tests. Questions, comments, suggestions, and any kind of help would also be welcome.

As Ulf mentions, you'll need to recomile the xf86-input-synaptics driver, and install a new kernel. The diff is available at http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-tech&m=144909872127618&q=raw, and reports should go back to Ulf on tech@.

(Comments are closed)


Comments
  1. By Anonymous Coward (73.254.64.240) on

    Where do you live Ulf? Maybe we can flood you with touch devices.....:-)

    Comments
    1. By Anonymous Coward (178.9.226.75) on

      > Where do you live Ulf? Maybe we can flood you with touch devices.....:-)

      Should be Germany.

    2. Comments
      1. By Anonymous Coward (98.237.165.204) on

        > > Where do you live Ulf? Maybe we can flood you with touch devices.....:-)
        >
        > It's very nice to have other people test, as well.

        Of course you are correct. I have quite a few devices I will test myself. Was just speculating on the value of putting devices in the hands of the expert working on it.

        Cheers.

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