Laptop Touchpad not working (Linux)

[Mr Penguin]

Hi, I got a Lenovo laptop last year for college and have been using windows 10 on it, but recently I have been interested in Linux, specifically Pop OS!. 

 

At first I was going to download Ubuntu, I got it ready on the usb stick and as soon as I started installing I noticed that my touchpad wasn't working, I plugged in a external USB mouse thinking it might just be a missing driver etc, but when I loaded in it wasn't even listed in xinput/ xinput list. At this stage I was quite busy and didn't have time to look into it.

 

Few months later

I recently started up my laptop and decided to put Pop OS thinking that it might go, but it didn't.

 

When it comes to Linux I am still very new so any tips will be grateful

 

I went through the installation with a external Mouse, then started troubleshooting. 

 

Did: xinput : Nothing related to touchpad came up.

 

Did: cat /proc/bus/input/devices : Nothing related to touchpad appeared, however a device called i2c-ELAN0001:00/input/input4 what their with the name "Elan Touchscreen" this seemed strange as this isn't a touchscreen laptop. 

 

Did some searching and discovered that doing ctrl+alt+F3 enters a Virtual Terminal, I logged in and touched my touchpad:  

first touch: elants_i2c i2c-ELAN0001:00: unknown packet 0e 00 04 03

When I let go: elants_i2c i2c-ELAN0001:00: unknown packet 0e 00 04 01

Meaning when I touch it, its 03 and when I let go it is 01. Also that touchscreen ELAN0001 = Touchpad touch (ELAN0001). 

 

So I guess this tells us that it can detect it, put something is missing e.g. Driver is just bad optimisation with the kernel. 

 

The attempted fixes I have done:

 

Tried installing/updated Elan Drivers as well as various other drivers that could of helped

I looked into the kernel itself assuming that at this point the kernel has no idea what to do with these drivers and the touchpad "touchscreen". -Tried to "build my own" kernel following some guides, got kinda far but certain steps weren't working and since I don't have a vast knowledge I don't know what to do. 

 

I have also noticed that this seems to happen to mostly Lenovo products, so something with the way Lenovo makes their Touchpad Drivers doesn't work with the Linux kernel? 

I don't have much knowledge with Linux and would really appreciate some help with this, if you need anymore information just ask.

Sorry if I have said something dumb etc. 

 

 

[Ashleyyyy]

this is why i don't recommend lenovo usually, they cheap out on the wrong things. piece of junk touchpads for example.

 

anyways, i found a guide but it is very involved...

 

https://itectec.com/ubuntu/ubuntu-ideapad-5-15are05-elan-touchpad-not-working-on-20-04-nor-on-18-04/

 

it might be easier to just get one of those small wireless mice...

[TorC]

I had an old Lenovo and I ended up disabling the touchpad and getting a USB mouse.  I was much happier!

 

FYI:  Look at the command line option in this

or how to disable touchpad on startup

 

I think you will be, too.

[jojito]

You said about building your own kernel but you never said anything about the official drivers. Try installing the linux-firmware package then reboot, it fixes a lot of driver issues.