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[Jeff Epstein <jepst79@xxxxxxxxx>]

Public bug reported:

Binary package hint: xserver-xorg-input-synaptics

I've just installed Lucid Beta 2 on an HP Mini 1010nr. There is some
unusual behavior involving the Synaptics touchpad. If the user contacts
the touchpad with more than one finger at a time, the cursor will "go
crazy" and bounce around the screen in an uncontrolled way. If you were
dragging an icon at the time, it will probably end up somewhere random.

This is different from the behavior under Karmic running on the same
machine. Under Karmic, if the user accidentally uses more than one
finger, the first finger is ignored. This behavior is pretty standard
for non-multitouch touchpads.

I consider this an important regression. Accidental touches with another
finger are pretty common when using a touchpad, and this bug means that
such touches produces often unpredictable results. The wild dancing of
the cursor is also ugly and obviously wrong to any user, so it produces
a bad impression.

Some other notes that may be important:
I believe that the touchpad on this system is actually multitouch-capable, even though Ubuntu treats it as singletouch-only. When running Windows 7 on the same machine, two-fingered scrolling is supported, but not under Ubuntu.

Another important difference between Lucid's and Karmic's handling of
the touchpad has to do with a feature that I hadn't seen before. My
touchpad has a small red light in the upper left. When running under
Windows with the OEM's drivers, tapping that area of the touchpad will
temporarily disable the touchpad, and the light will illuminate. Tapping
that area again will re-enable the touchpad. This feature obviously
doesn't work under Ubuntu. Under Karmic, the light that indicates a
disabled touchpad was always off. Under Lucid, however, the light is
always on, even though the touchpad is enabled (and producing the above-
mentioned crazy jumping of the cursor). This suggests to me that there
is some confusion with the driver.

** Affects: xserver-xorg-input-synaptics (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New


** Tags: regression

-- 
Contact with more than one finger on touchpad produces crazy frenetic cursor
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/558847
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