Thinkpad utilities query

[Nigel Wilkinson]

Hi folks

I've recently acquired a T43 which had no operating system. I have it
up and running fine under Linux but certain functions most laptops have
in BIOS the T43 accesses via software under windows. Now I need to turn
off the mousepad thingy buttons coz thats where my wrist rests. How can
I do this under Linux or where can I get the software to do it under
windows (which I'd have to install so the Linux solution is preferred)

Cheers
Nigel

[Adam Sloboda-2]

At Thu, 21 Feb 2008 20:18:14 +0000,
Nigel Wilkinson wrote:
>
> I've recently acquired a T43 which had no operating system. I have it
> up and running fine under Linux but certain functions most laptops have
> in BIOS the T43 accesses via software under windows. Now I need to turn
> off the mousepad thingy buttons coz thats where my wrist rests. How can
> I do this under Linux or where can I get the software to do it under
> windows (which I'd have to install so the Linux solution is preferred)
>

I have in my .xsession:

  synclient TouchpadOff=1;

This requires this option for synaptics driver (xorg.conf):

        Option          "SHMConfig"             "true"

There is also program which tracks keys and turns touchpad on/off
automatically when you write, I can't recall it's name.

Regards,
Adam
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[Richard Neill]

>
> I've recently acquired a T43 which had no operating system. I have it
> up and running fine under Linux but certain functions most laptops have
> in BIOS the T43 accesses via software under windows.

Actually, I think you can do both - either use a windows utility, or
change it in the BIOS. Under linux, there is also tpctl, though this is
really aimed at older thinkpads.


  Now I need to turn
> off the mousepad thingy buttons coz thats where my wrist rests. How can
> I do this under Linux or where can I get the software to do it under
> windows (which I'd have to install so the Linux solution is preferred)


Write a udev rule to create different mouse devices for the trackpoint and
the touchpad. Then change xorg.conf to only use the one you want, not
/dev/input/mice (which is a hybrid).  (I've sent a more detailed version
of this to this list before - check the archives).

OR, use something like synclient to configure the pad directly.

Best wishes,

Richard


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[Marius Gedminas]

On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 08:18:14PM +0000, Nigel Wilkinson wrote:
> I've recently acquired a T43 which had no operating system. I have it
> up and running fine under Linux but certain functions most laptops have
> in BIOS the T43 accesses via software under windows. Now I need to turn
> off the mousepad thingy buttons coz thats where my wrist rests. How can
> I do this under Linux or where can I get the software to do it under
> windows (which I'd have to install so the Linux solution is preferred)

If you want to disable the whole thinkpad, you can do that rather easily
by modifying the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file (the synclient solution
mentioned in the other email is probably best, as you then can toggle
the touchpad at any time).

If you want the touchpad itself to keep working, but don't want the
buttons, you'll need to recompile the synaptics driver with the
following patch:
http://mg.pov.lt/xserver-xorg-input-synaptics-0.14.6-touchpad-buttons-off.patch

and then use synclient TouchpadOff=3 instead of TouchpadOff=1

HTH,
Marius Gedminas
--
C is a language that combines all the elegance and power of assembly language
with all the readability and maintainability of assembly language.

[Nigel Wilkinson]

On Thu, 21 Feb 2008 21:25:22 +0100
Adam Sloboda <ja@...> wrote:

> I have in my .xsession:
>
>   synclient TouchpadOff=1;
>
> This requires this option for synaptics driver (xorg.conf):
>
>         Option          "SHMConfig"             "true"
>
This seemed to be what I was looking for so My xorg.conf now contains

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier  "Synaptics Touchpad"
        Driver      "synaptics"
        Option    "SendCoreEvents" "true"
        Option    "Device" "/dev/psaux"
        Option    "Protocol" "auto-dev"
        Option    "HorizEdgeScroll" "0"
        Option    "SHMConfig" "true"
EndSection

but when I try to switch the touchpad off I get the following

nigel@henry:~$ synclient TouchpadOff=1
Can't access shared memory area. SHMConfig disabled?
nigel@henry:~$

anyone know why.

Note: I'm using Xubuntu 7.10

Cheers
Nigel

[Adam Sloboda-2]

At Sat, 23 Feb 2008 20:33:10 +0000,
Nigel Wilkinson wrote:
>
> Can't access shared memory area. SHMConfig disabled?

I have basically the same configuration, have you restarted X server?

Regards,
Adam
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[Dom-19]

Nigel Wilkinson wrote:

> On Thu, 21 Feb 2008 21:25:22 +0100
> Adam Sloboda <ja@...> wrote:
>
>  
>> I have in my .xsession:
>>
>>   synclient TouchpadOff=1;
>>
>> This requires this option for synaptics driver (xorg.conf):
>>
>>         Option          "SHMConfig"             "true"
>>
>>    
> This seemed to be what I was looking for so My xorg.conf now contains
>
> Section "InputDevice"
> Identifier  "Synaptics Touchpad"
> Driver      "synaptics"
> Option    "SendCoreEvents" "true"
> Option    "Device" "/dev/psaux"
> Option    "Protocol" "auto-dev"
> Option    "HorizEdgeScroll" "0"
> Option    "SHMConfig" "true"
> EndSection
>
> but when I try to switch the touchpad off I get the following
>
> nigel@henry:~$ synclient TouchpadOff=1
> Can't access shared memory area. SHMConfig disabled?
> nigel@henry:~$
>
> anyone know why.
>
> Note: I'm using Xubuntu 7.10
>
> Cheers
> Nigel
>  

I had the same problem and the solution for me was to completely disable
TouchPad in BIOS because I never use it and it just gets in the way.
And judging by your first message, this could be a quick and simple
solution for you too.

However, for the few friends of mine who occasionally use this ThinkPad,
and don't like the nipple as much as I do, I'll monitor this thread in
hope someone actually gives a solution to "Can't access shared memory
area. SHMConfig disabled?" problem, so I can enable/disable the TouchPad
while in X.

Dom
http://domdelimar.com

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[Damien Challet-2]

> > nigel@henry:~$ synclient TouchpadOff=1
> > Can't access shared memory area. SHMConfig disabled?
> > nigel@henry:~$

is it a permission problem ?

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[Dom-19]

Damien Challet wrote:
>>> nigel@henry:~$ synclient TouchpadOff=1
>>> Can't access shared memory area. SHMConfig disabled?
>>> nigel@henry:~$
>>>      
> is it a permission problem ?
>  
Can you help me? Maybe I missed something. What group I should be a
member of? I tried it with root as well, same thing happens.
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[Damien Challet-2]

On Sunday 24 February 2008 15.24:35 Dom wrote:
> Damien Challet wrote:
> >>> nigel@henry:~$ synclient TouchpadOff=1
> >>> Can't access shared memory area. SHMConfig disabled?
> >>> nigel@henry:~$
> >
> > is it a permission problem ?
>
> Can you help me? Maybe I missed something. What group I should be a
> member of? I tried it with root as well, same thing happens.

I do not know, but first do a

grep SHM /var/log/Xorg.0.log

I get

(II) Initializing built-in extension MIT-SHM
(**) Option "SHMConfig" "on"

which is what you want.

I am able to use the synclient command cited above (ubuntu).


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[Marius Gedminas]

On Sun, Feb 24, 2008 at 03:24:35PM +0100, Dom wrote:
> Damien Challet wrote:
>>>> nigel@henry:~$ synclient TouchpadOff=1
>>>> Can't access shared memory area. SHMConfig disabled?
>>>> nigel@henry:~$
>>>>      
>> is it a permission problem ?
>>  
> Can you help me? Maybe I missed something. What group I should be a member
> of? I tried it with root as well, same thing happens.

You don't need to be root; any user can use synclient (which is why the
option is described as "insecure").

Try running "ipcs -m", it will list all shared memory segments on your
system.  I think the one used by synclient is this one:

0x00005d8b 0          root      777        360        1

The address will be different, but it's owned by root, readable and
writable by anyone, and is 360 bytes long.

You can also check if you have tmpfs mounted on /dev/shm (Ubuntu should
do that by default, but you never know...)

Marius Gedminas
--
Computo, ergo sum.
                -- Curt Suplee

[Dom-19]

Damien Challet wrote:

> On Sunday 24 February 2008 15.24:35 Dom wrote:
>  
>> Damien Challet wrote:
>>    
>>>>> nigel@henry:~$ synclient TouchpadOff=1
>>>>> Can't access shared memory area. SHMConfig disabled?
>>>>> nigel@henry:~$
>>>>>          
>>> is it a permission problem ?
>>>      
>> Can you help me? Maybe I missed something. What group I should be a
>> member of? I tried it with root as well, same thing happens.
>>    
>
> I do not know, but first do a
>
> grep SHM /var/log/Xorg.0.log
>
> I get
>
> (II) Initializing built-in extension MIT-SHM
> (**) Option "SHMConfig" "on"
>
> which is what you want.
>
> I am able to use the synclient command cited above (ubuntu).
>  

 From my Xorg.0.log I only get:
(II) Initializing built-in extension MIT-SHM

without: (**) Option "SHMConfig" "on"

(I use Debian unstable)
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[Dom-19]

Marius Gedminas wrote:

> On Sun, Feb 24, 2008 at 03:24:35PM +0100, Dom wrote:
>  
>> Damien Challet wrote:
>>    
>>>>> nigel@henry:~$ synclient TouchpadOff=1
>>>>> Can't access shared memory area. SHMConfig disabled?
>>>>> nigel@henry:~$
>>>>>      
>>>>>          
>>> is it a permission problem ?
>>>  
>>>      
>> Can you help me? Maybe I missed something. What group I should be a member
>> of? I tried it with root as well, same thing happens.
>>    
>
> You don't need to be root; any user can use synclient (which is why the
> option is described as "insecure").
>
> Try running "ipcs -m", it will list all shared memory segments on your
> system.  I think the one used by synclient is this one:
>
> 0x00005d8b 0          root      777        360        1
>
> The address will be different, but it's owned by root, readable and
> writable by anyone, and is 360 bytes long.
>
> You can also check if you have tmpfs mounted on /dev/shm (Ubuntu should
> do that by default, but you never know...)
>
> Marius Gedminas
>  

Actually, I have tmpfs mounted on /dev/shm, even though it's not set in
fstab - should that matter?

:~$ mount | grep tmpfs
tmpfs on /lib/init/rw type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,mode=0755)
udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)

BTW, "ipcs -m" doesn't return anything like you mention. All memory
segments I have are owned by me, regular user, not root, and look
something like this:
key shmid owner perms bytes nattch status
0x00000000 1191673856 domi 600 393216 2 dest

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[Nigel Wilkinson]

I've got this working on my T43 using xubuntu 7.10, hope this helps
you guys.

I had a section in xorg.conf that used to read

Section "ServerLayout"

# Uncomment if you have a wacom tablet
# InputDevice     "stylus" "SendCoreEvents"
# InputDevice     "cursor" "SendCoreEvents"
# InputDevice     "eraser" "SendCoreEvents"
        Identifier     "Default Layout"
        Screen      0  "aticonfig-Screen[0]" 0 0
        InputDevice    "Generic Keyboard"
        InputDevice    "Configured Mouse"
# InputDevice    "Synaptics Touchpad"
EndSection

I uncommented the final line so it now reads

Section "ServerLayout"

# Uncomment if you have a wacom tablet
# InputDevice     "stylus" "SendCoreEvents"
# InputDevice     "cursor" "SendCoreEvents"
# InputDevice     "eraser" "SendCoreEvents"
        Identifier     "Default Layout"
        Screen      0  "aticonfig-Screen[0]" 0 0
        InputDevice    "Generic Keyboard"
        InputDevice    "Configured Mouse"
        InputDevice    "Synaptics Touchpad"
EndSection

I can now switch off the touchpad.

Cheers
Nigel

[Dom-19]

Nigel Wilkinson wrote:

> I've got this working on my T43 using xubuntu 7.10, hope this helps
> you guys.
>
> I had a section in xorg.conf that used to read
>
> Section "ServerLayout"
>
> # Uncomment if you have a wacom tablet
> # InputDevice     "stylus" "SendCoreEvents"
> # InputDevice     "cursor" "SendCoreEvents"
> # InputDevice     "eraser" "SendCoreEvents"
> Identifier     "Default Layout"
> Screen      0  "aticonfig-Screen[0]" 0 0
> InputDevice    "Generic Keyboard"
> InputDevice    "Configured Mouse"
> # InputDevice    "Synaptics Touchpad"
> EndSection
>
> I uncommented the final line so it now reads
>
> Section "ServerLayout"
>
> # Uncomment if you have a wacom tablet
> # InputDevice     "stylus" "SendCoreEvents"
> # InputDevice     "cursor" "SendCoreEvents"
> # InputDevice     "eraser" "SendCoreEvents"
> Identifier     "Default Layout"
> Screen      0  "aticonfig-Screen[0]" 0 0
> InputDevice    "Generic Keyboard"
> InputDevice    "Configured Mouse"
> InputDevice    "Synaptics Touchpad"
> EndSection
>
> I can now switch off the touchpad.
>
> Cheers
> Nigel
>  

Thanks, that did it for me too. I didn't have any InputDevice lines in
ServerLayout section...
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