Hi list,
I'm really new to openbsd, so please forgive me if this is faq or rtfm.

I did try to search for information on how to be able to scroll with my laptop touchpad, but did not find any openbsd specific documentation.

My system:
$ uname -a
OpenBSD neo.my.domain 4.6 GENERIC#58 i386

My laptop:
Dell Latitude CPt 400
(it's an old P2 400MHz)

In WinXP a driver from synaptics made the scrolling work.

TIA,
--
Mikael Bak <mikael*******>

First... investigate if the scrolling ins'n in hardware...

because the eeepc have some interesting ways to do it)

Saludos.

--
DISCLAIMER:  http://goldmark.org/jeff/stupid-disclaimers/  
This message will self-destruct in 3 seconds.

laptop touchpad, but did not find any openbsd specific documentation.
to do this in openbsd.

It's not in hardware. On linux this is supported by the synaptics X
touchpad driver. I would also really like to see this work on OpenBSD
but I'm not awesome enough to know why it doesn't. I took a stab at
compiling the synaptics driver (which you can google for) and it, of
course, failed miserably (and yes I used gmake).

I know that some features need a multitouch touchpad, but simple
scrolling should just be able to work with any touchpad that can give
an x,y coordinate. It's a pity.

-Nick

Abel, Nick,
Thanks both of you for responding!

I also have the feeling that basic scrolling shouldn't depend on
specific hardware. I have used this same hw in WinXP and successfully
made the touchpad scroll. Zooming and other features may be hardware
dependent.

Nick, you are telling me that people use openbsd and X and surf the web
as their primary OS without missing this feature? :-) We are the only
ones who whould like to use our old laptops this way? :-)

OK. I know the gig. If I want it to work I should download the source
code and fix it, then post the fix to a list with developers who can
review and submit the patches. I know that. I was just surprised such
basic thing haven't been targeted yet.

I just took a look at my other laptop (running Ubuntu) and its xorg.conf
has this:
Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier    "Synaptics Touchpad"
    Driver        "synaptics"
    Option        "SendCoreEvents"    "true"
    Option        "Device"    "/dev/psaux"
    Option        "Protocol"    "auto-dev"
    Option        "HorizEdgeScroll"    "0"
EndSection

It seems to be a similar way in FreeBSD (PCBSD): http://forums.pcbsd.org/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=9249

Oh well. If someone had any luck with this on OpenBSD, then please tell us.

TIA,
Mikael

Sorry, I missed this in my inbox before!

Yeah I know. Strange, isn't it? I don't really know why. I think it
must be because the devs all spend most of their time at the command
line without even running X (I don't know how they can stand fvwm).
And that's fine for them, but there's just a lot of tiny little UI
advances that "desktops" have made in the last few years that I really
would prefer not to live without, that unfortunately I have to on
OpenBSD.

I don't know enough to fix it myself and I don't have time to learn,
which is sad because it means that, practically, if I want to not be
in opposition to my UI all the time I have to use Ubuntu or something.

Ditto. Though I am not holding out hopes.

There's long threads in the archives about how OpenBSD can /totally/
be used a a desktop but after a good 6 years of using OpenBSD I'm not
so sure. Yeah, you can edit .docs and you can browse the web, and
there are file browsers in ports, but everything hangs together like a
Frankenstein monster. It seems no one has really put it through it's
paces; for example, if I want Thunar to update files when I delete
them I have to run FAM, but FAM for some reason spawns trackerd which
eats my CPU.

Anyway, that's not what this thread was about. Good holidays everyone!

-Nick