Ubuntu 18.4 LTS (Bionic Beaver) has been released with Gnome Desktop (until 16.4 LTS uses Unity) and many cool features making it best version of Ubuntu ever released. Although Ubuntu 18.4 is great it comes with little bugs for touhpad and the problem is that, the touchpad cursor movement is not smooth and jumps around. Also right click is not working. I have a Dell Inspiron 15 3000 Series laptop that uses Synaptics touchpad. Many other laptops that use Synaptics will also have this touchpad problem, so here is how to fix that.
Ubuntu 18.4 comes with libinput touchpad driver by default and the OS is missing Synaptics touchpad driver.
To trace down the problem check your input devices, run this code in terminal to see the complete list.
xinput list
You can see there your Synaptics touchpad. After that lets check if Synaptics driver has been installed or not. Type below command to get complete list of installed packages.
apt list --installed
Search for xserver-xorg-input-synaptics , this one is missing. I have already installed Synaptics so it is showing in screenshot.
If you are completely new at Ubuntu/Linux you would like to read Basic Linux Commands You Should Know While Using Linux.
Now it is conformed that synaptics driver is missing, so we should install it. Make sure to check all the 4 source in Software and Updates. See the screenshot below.
Now install Synaptics driver.
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-input-synaptics
After installing Synaptics reboot or logout now you can feel smooth cursor movement.
To enable right click in Ubuntu 18.4
Right click feature for touchpad is disabled in Ubuntu 18.4 LTS, however you can tap with two fingers for right click. I found tapping with two fingers easier that pressing buttons. If you want to use touchpad right click, install Gnome Tweaks.
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gnome-tweaks
Open Tweaks and in the Keybord and Mouse section, and under Mouse Click Emulation tick Area.
Let me know if this worked for you or not through the comment.
hi sangram,
what if after i install synaptics, and reboot, my input devices freeze totally?
it is probably a different issue, but maybe you already faced it.
i have the input devices during login phase , but after login all freeze.
my apt list –installed looks like this
xserver-xorg-input-evdev/bionic,now 1:2.10.5-1ubuntu1 amd64 [installed]
xserver-xorg-input-libinput-dev/bionic,bionic,now 0.27.1-1 all [installed]
xserver-xorg-input-synaptics/bionic,now 1.9.0-1ubuntu1 amd64 [installed]
xserver-xorg-input-synaptics-dev/bionic,bionic,now 1.9.0-1ubuntu1 all [installed]
xserver-xorg-legacy-hwe-18.04/bionic-updates,now 2:1.20.4-1ubuntu3~18.04.1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
trying to do this with a touch screen: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1166325/how-to-do-multitouch-on-waveshare-screen-with-touchegg-and-synaptic-input-driver
thank you
Sorry but I am completely unaware about this type of problem and unable to reproduce. Those two drivers may be conflicting with each other. You can try removing libinput drivers or it may be a bug. Stick with forums you probably gonna find the solution. And please let me know when your problem is solved.
Dammit 🙂
Had my hopes for you 🙂
Now I installed tslib (check it out very cool), but now I can’t even login to my desktop…
Very weird situation.
I think you ran into a big trouble. Sorry for your loss. You should chroot to recover your input drivers. These links can be helpful:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/300509/how-to-replace-lib-modules-in-chroot
https://superuser.com/questions/111152/whats-the-proper-way-to-prepare-chroot-to-recover-a-broken-linux-installation
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Chroot
It worked for me
I am glad to know.
Thank you. I really appreciate this article
Thank you very much! It worked for me. Fixed my tap to click problem.
Thank you !!!
very nice article, but the solution does not helped me
I switched to Arch Linux. Where I only use libinput driver and I don’t have Ubuntu like problem. Have you tried using libinput or synaptics drivers only at a time?
I have an issue where if I let my laptop sleep, wake it and login i cant click a window with one finger then drag it with another.. doing a modprobe mouse command to reset it works but annoying to do that every time i open the laptop
Lenovo x1 carbon 5th gen
Worked perfectly, Thanks for sharing
I use MediaCom Flexbook edge 13. And I installed ubuntu 18.4, but the touchpad and touchscreen is not working. when i run the command xinput list, it does not show any touchpad device but it shows the usb mouse. Please suggest some solutions.
Try using synaptics or libinput at a time.I mean switch your driver and stick with one that works for you.
Hi Just trued this. I was prompted to install xserer core something, as a dependency, so I did. Now the trackpad works but nothing else! The keyboard and mouse didn’t work and after sleeping it won’t resume. Laptop is unusable.
This seems to be your solution.. https://askubuntu.com/questions/891670/how-to-fix-input-devices-after-xserver-xorg-core-upgrade
It happens due to some wrong dependencies in PPA. Follow the solution in the link. Hope you will fix this problem.
Thanks for this. Simple solution to an annoying problem. Thanks for the explanation, too. I’ve spent weeks wondering what was wrong after I upgraded to 18.04 and tried other things that didn’t work.
It was annoying to me too. It seems Ubuntu does not wants to fix this. Later I moved to Arch Linux.
Works perfectly!
Thanks
very well explained problem resolved hats off to you
thanks
I use lenovo ideapad 330, i installed ubuntu 18.4 the touchpad not working. when i run the command xinput list it does not show any touchpad device but it shows the usb mouse. i searched about it everywhere someone told that it is kernel problem so how i can solve this problem.plz suggest some solutions.
Here is your solution, https://askubuntu.com/questions/1049787/lenovo-ideapad-330-touchpad-not-working
Thanks man, its amazing…….it’s working wowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!
Great, this works! I just bought a new Asus fx503vd laptop and installed Ubuntu 18.10 with the newest available kernel (4.19.10) and the touchpad was not working properly. I already googled for some time, and couldn’t find a solution. I almost gave up, gave it one more try and then found your solution. This works for me! Many thanks. Now my Touchpad is smooth and doesn’t stutter anymore.
Glad to hear. I faced the same problem when I installed Ubuntu 18.4. After hours of attempts I found a solution and decided to post it here.
I’m afraid it didn’t fixed the problem entirely. I’m posting this for future reference if anybody else is experiencing this problem. But one of the problems now with using synaptics is that the touchpad suddenly stops working for a few minutes. Then it works again for a few minutes. I guess the driver is crashing or something? Also, sometimes the whole system cracks ups and freezes for a few minutes. So for my Asus FX503VD I still have no working touchpad on Ubuntu 18.10 when using Synpatics instead of libinput.
Thanks, man. This helped me enable the right click.
looks like it solved problem with my thinkpad, it was crazy after getting into sleep mode…. now it looks like that everything is fine. I is a very first test but cheers!!!!!!!!!!
I thank you for this article. I followed your instructions…or believe I did, and have the Synaptics file installed. I am running a Lenovo Flex 11 computer. sometimes the touch pad will work when I boot up, but after a moment or two it stops working and must use an external mouse I have. After installing the Synaptics file and re-booting my Lenovo, the touchpad still does not work. The touchpad is not recognized as existing in the “Devices” settings.
I admit to near perfect ignorance in this matter. Is there such a thuing as some process happening during boot-up, which obscures or interferes with the memory location which tells my computer that it has a touch pad, sometimes?
I thank you for your time and effort in this matter.
I can’t exactly tell the solution. But you can try reinstalling touchpad driver and updating Ubuntu if any available.
Again, I thank you for your efforts. I finally upgraded to Ubuntu 18.10 and now my Lenovo works perfectly. (December 2018)
It is a good news. It means new version of Ubuntu does not have problem with synaptic driver.
Thank you so much! I am new to Ubuntu and my Lenovo G40-80 touchpad didn’t smooth well on the first try after I install Ubuntu. After I install the synaptics driver, the touchpad works well especially for the two-finger scrolling 🙂
Glad to hear.. ?
Nice article. My problem was that fast swipes on the touchpad seemed to be ignored. I found myself having to gesture slowly and deliberately, which was quite annoying. Solution: in Tweaks, turn off “Disable While Typing”.
Thanks for you valuable comment.
It’s not working , I’m using acer predator helios 300
All the solution in this site works unless they are out dated. If can’t find correct solution don’t say it does not work, instead give discription of your problem and what actualy you did.
it is not working.
Maybe you have different problem than described here.
That works great, but another problem occurred – now I need to double-tap to click. Is there a way to fix?
Gnome Tweaks may be helpful. There is some setup for touchpad. Try installing Gnome Tweaks and instruction to install it is given at end of this post.
Perfecto, funciona genial en mi Lenovo g40-80 (driver: Elan, Synaptic) con Ubuntu. Muchas gracias, saludos desde Chile.
(Perfect, it works great on my Lenovo g40-80 (driver: Elan, Synaptic) with Ubuntu. Thank you very much, greetings from Chile.)
I’m glad it helped you.
Thank you my Touchpad is now working properly
It’s glad to hear.