ubuntu on CF-29

I am now running linux and it works fine.
The installation was easy and I am able to access internet via wifi. Touch pad works, but I had to work on the touch screen.

 

Congrats on a good choice. Lots of folks like you and I are very happy with Ubuntu.

 

Jolut,
What did you do to get the touchscreen working?

 

No, not yet. I will let you know when I do.

 

The link n my signature has a walkthrough I put together for PCLinuxOS, Some or most of the material should apply, except maybe the location of the Xorg Libraries. Might help.
Good Luck.

 

anyone seen this (Ubuntu and touch screen) Think it would work with the CF-28?

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=158666

 

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=2512327#post2512327

There is also this

I know its a different system. But the basics may still be able to transfer over

 

Check this out; http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=2838077&postcount=9

Use that as a starting reference. I can't guarantee it'll work on a 29, but it works on the 28's.

 

Does it work well on the 28s? Like is the calibration good or what?

 

It works pretty well. Mint and Ubuntu are essentially the same thing (Mint is based off of Ubuntu), so that should get you in the ballpark.

Unfortunately calibration is all a test/fail/test/success thing. Go binary and see if you can get it closer, but it'll take a half hour or more to get it good.

But yes, it does operate well.

 

Well my eventual plan is to have a custom GUI based on Touch screen that runs off of Unbuntu or a very low end version. Trying to maximize battery length.

 

did you get WPA suppplicant working????

or something else that does WPA with your wireless. Thats the big one which makes it a ***** to use linux on laptops...

 

I have WPA-PSK with TKIP. It works fine and config was no problem.

 

did you ever hear of damn small linux

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

this is probably your best bet, and start adding packages as needed. Its compatible with Debian(which Ubuntu is based off).

if your pretty familiar with linux, this is your best option

kudos, I could never get it working

 

With Mint 4.0 (Gnome), and my atheros 5006 card, it worked right off the bat.

With the KDE version, I had to install something for some reason, but it worked fairly quickly. I suppose it's for the best, because I've been a gnome guy since 2000, so it's what I'm used to.

 

I booted with the Ubuntu live-CD and before installing, I connected the computer to internet via wifi. When Ubuntu was installed wifi worked perfectly.
I made an installation before, without connecting to Internet, and wifi failed with WPA.

 

Most Linux distributions with 2.6.22.X or newer kernels can now be made to work with the touchscreens on CF-28s and CF-29s. You can tell if the kernel has been patched to support the touchscreen if you get some action on the screen when you try and tap or drag on the screen - out of the box on such distros, the touchscreen seems to work a bit but only lines up correctly in the upper left corner of the screen. To get things working properly, you need to copy the evtouch_drv.so (required for most distros) or evtouch_drv.o (required for Mepis) to the input folder and modify xorg.conf as the link indicates. I used Modly's instructions and got it working on PCLinuxOS Gnome 2008 Edition but had to add the entire "InputDevice" section (as it did not exist in the xorg.conf on PCLinuxOS) and also had to add a line to the "ServerLayout" section as outlined below.

Add the following line to Section "ServerLayout" if it does not exist:

InputDevice "Synaptics Touchpad" "SendCoreEvents"

It is good to see that the newer kernels are finally starting to make this a bit easier - it still takes a few minutes of additional setup to get it working properly but it is well worth it to have all the features of the Toughbook working.

 

Has anyone got the touchscreen working with Ubuntu 8.04?
Touchscreen works 'out the box' for me, but is not calibrated.

I used to have it working perfectly on Ubuntu 7.10 but since the upgrade cannot get it going for the life of me.
The strange thing, and perhaps the problem, is /proc/bus/input/devices has mouse2/event8 down as the input for touchscreen, and mouse1/event7 down for the touchpad.

Whilst this isn't too much of a problem, as I created a symlink in /dev/input for each, it just doesnt seem to work in practise.

I can get the touchpad working easily, and the touchscreen working but uncalibrated. But if I use evtouch and the touchscreen event8, I get a horrible touchscreen (cant go diagonally, its up 1cm, across 1cm if you see what I mean) and the touchpad is unresponsive.

Really I'm just seeing if anyone has got it working yet, and if so, do you have 2 inputs in /proc/bus/input/devices?

PS> Sound also I have never had working, and in 8.04 pcc_acpi doesnt work for the Fn keys

 

I'm waiting for Linux Mint 5 to get out of Beta before I try it out. Not that I have anything against beta software, I just don't want to install it twice

(Mint is based on the latest ubuntu release, so it should apply).

Touchscreen capability should work directly out of the box though with anything using the 2.6.23 kernel or later, minus the calibration. Unfortunately the only way I know to calibrate is with the directions in my guide, which is basically taking a shot in the dark every time until it's fairly close. Keep in mind though, that using other drivers (evtouch) will cause the calibration to be very different.

 

Hi Modly,

ahhh okay, I didn't really think to just try calibrating "as is", rather than install the evtouch driver.
A fresh install does give me a pretty good touchscreen (compared to the fun of say Ubuntu 7.10), its just not calibrated.

My xorg.conf only lists a synaptics touchpad, do I just need to put the MinX etc. command in that, or do I need to create a new section. If so, what driver would I list, and what /dev/input ?

Will have a play tonight anyway with your advice and see what happens!

 

Try just adding the minX/y maxX/Y stuff into the same section as the synaptics.

If that doesn't do anything, you might have to change more, but I'd stick with just adding that to start. Just make sure you do a backup of the original xorg.conf, incase you break it.

Post your results for calibration, and screen size once you get it working. You can try my numbers to start with, but I'll assure you that they bork non-evtouch calibrations.

Code:

Section "InputDevice"
	Identifier	"Synaptics Touchpad"
	Driver		"evtouch"
	Option		"SendCoreEvents"	"true"
	Option		"Device"		"/dev/input/event3"
	Option		"Emulate3Buttons"
	Option		"Emulate3Timeout"	"50"
	Option		"Name"			"CF-28 Touchscreen"
	Option		"Mode"			"absolute"
	Option		"MinX"			"160"
	Option		"MinY"			"360"
	Option		"MaxX"			"3870"
	Option		"MaxY"			"3880"
EndSection

Don't change the identifier, driver or device, but you can try any of the rest to see what happens.

Just remember that if it is way off, do it binary and change the numbers alot. Otherwise you'll be at it for a while.

 

Mod, you have to stop posting after you been on the hard stuff!

 

Heh, the beer just hit me good n' hard tonight mate! I've been dead tired all day, and I didn't eat a huge dinner, so I'm not as sober as I normally would be.

At least my whiskey is gone, so I'm not tempted

 

It's difficult as I don't have my laptop at work, and don't have Internet at home

But...here's what I found last night.

After a standard install of Ubuntu, touchscreen works but goes too far in any direction, but does actually go in the right direction which is a start!
The xorg.conf has a default mouse (but this is not listed in ServerLayout so presuming its not used), and a Synaptics Touchpad.

The Synaptics Touchpad is using /dev/psaux and the driver "synaptics".

I'm not sure if this is the touchscreen or not, as a "cat /dev/psaux" receives input from both the touchpad and the touchscreen.


Adding in the MinX etc. does absolutely nothing, so I think /dev/psaux is not the correct device?

If I look in /proc/bus/input/devices I have a touchscreen and touchpad listed.
The touchpad is using mouse1 & event7.
The touchscreen is using mouse2 & event8.


If I "cat /dev/input/event7" both touchscreen and touchpad show input.
If I "cat /dev/input/event8" both touchscreen and touchpad show input.
If I "cat /dev/input/mouse1" only touchpad shows input.
If I "cat /dev/input/mouse2" only touchscreen shows input.


This would suggest I need to make a section in xorg.conf for both touchscreen and touchpad, using the appropriate mouse1/2 devices?
I tried this using evtouch, evdev & synaptics, none work.

I can't get the touchscreen working no matter what I try, the closest I have got it is touchscreen working (but moves in a very blocky fashion, ie 1cm up, 1cm across) but that has the touchpad disabled.

It's quite difficult to give detailed info with the laptop at home, but will keep playing and see what I can come up with!

 

I decided to give in and update to the Mint 5 beta.

I've had a ton of trouble getting it to work with a minimal amount of effort. Change the driver to "evtouch" (Should exist), and try calibrating from there.

I'll see what I can find from here, but my calibration is about twice as close as it was with the synaptics driver.

 

i can't get anywhere with it at all - I've tried evtouch and the only time I can ever calibrate the touchscreen is when I disable the touchpad and take one of the events that share the touchpad/touchscreen but then it just moves in 1cm blocks around the screen (albeit it somewhat in the right place!)

 

I'm still failing too. I'm ready to just do everything per the instructions I made (Downloading evtouch 0.8.7) and trying that out. I think the different versions of evtouch calibrate differently.

 

I've tried that also, no joy - but please feel free to try again as I have done so many combinations I've forgotten what I've done!

In /proc/bus/input/devices do you get 2 devices for the touchscreen touchpad?

For example I have mouse2 & event8 for touchscreen, which I'm not sure how you link in xorg.conf

 

Event8? Strange, mine has shown me my results on Event3.

 

If I recall, I have something similar to the following:

(in /proc/bus/input/devices)
touchpad - mouse1, event7
touchscreen - mouse2, event8

but a "od /dev/input/xxx" shows input for the touchscreen on:

/dev/psaux
/dev/input/mouse1
/dev/input/mouse2
/dev/input/event7
/dev/input/event8

Thats from memory, I need to spend some time on it with net access - most probably Saturday!

 

Did you ever get it working Modly?

 

I had to give up on the project temporarily because I had to focus on moving, but I'll probably fire it up again in next week or so.

I'm extremely confused with it though.

 

Hello;
Do Yo have hotkeys/ brightness control under linux? I've got CF-29 and Debian testing, and have some problems with it (brigktness is the most important for me).