changes to xorg.conf not taking effect upon reboot?

[hubbard]

Hello All,

I have searched all day for an answer to this, and I've experimented all night on my own, but I haven't been able to sort it out. I am rather inexperienced with Linux, but I am a technical person and comfortable diving in.

My newish laptop requires me to run commands to get the touch pad (elantech) to work properly.

synclient FingerLow=1
synclient FingerHigh=1

Before I run these commands in the terminal the touch pad requires half of my finger to be in contact with it to register my touch. After running these commands, it behaves exactly as I expect it to. Other settings for the touch pad I have changed in the Mouse Prefs (System>Preferences>Mouse) like two finger scrolling etc..

I've read elsewhere that I should be able to edit the xorg.conf file to include these settings so that I don't have to do it manually. When I edit my file (/usr/share/xreprobe/xorg.conf) to contain these settings formatted to match the settings already present, they do not seem to take effect upon reboot (i have persistent installation of BT on a flash drive). I confirm this by running synclient-l and seeing that the values for FingerHigh and FingerLow are back to the defaults. Is there another xorg.conf file hidden somewhere else, or another file altogether I should be looking at? Any help is appreciated, and I apologize ahead of time for my newbness.

Cheers!

[maverik35]

Could you please post the Xorg.conf?

[hubbard]

Thanks maverik35 for taking a look. Below is my xorg.conf with the options added to the generic mouse section. I think there was something I ran in terminal at some point early in this effort which indicated that "generic mouse" was being used by the OS, but I can't remember what it was now... Hopefully I'm not just imagining this. Anyway, let me know your thoughts when you have time. Thanks.

# bare-bones XFree86 config to start the server in probe-only mode
Section "Files"
	FontPath	"/usr/share/X11/fonts/misc"
	RgbPath		"/etc/X11/rgb.txt"
EndSection
Section "ServerFlags"
	Option "AllowMouseOpenFail"
EndSection
Section "Module"
	Load	"bitmap"
	Load	"dbe"
	Load	"ddc"
	Load	"extmod"
	Load	"freetype"
	Load	"int10"
	Load	"record"
	Load	"vbe"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
	Identifier	"Generic Keyboard"
	Driver		"keyboard"
	Option		"CoreKeyboard"
	Option		"XkbRules"	"xorg"
	Option		"XkbModel"	"pc104"
	Option		"XkbLayout"	"us"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
	Identifier	"Generic Mouse"
	Driver		"mouse"
	Option		"CorePointer"
	Option		"Device"		"/dev/input/mice"
	Option		"Protocol"		"ImPS/2"
	Option		"FingerLow"		"1"
	Option		"FingerHigh"		"1"
EndSection
Section "Device"
	Identifier	"Generic Device"
	Driver		"::DRIVER::"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
	Identifier	"Generic Monitor"
	Option		"DPMS"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
	Identifier	"Default Screen"
	Device		"Generic Device"
	Monitor		"Generic Monitor"
	DefaultDepth	24
	SubSection "Display"
		Depth		1
		Modes		"1024x768"
	EndSubSection
	SubSection "Display"
		Depth		4
		Modes		"1024x768"
	EndSubSection
	SubSection "Display"
		Depth		8
		Modes		"1024x768"
	EndSubSection
	SubSection "Display"
		Depth		15
		Modes		"1024x768"
	EndSubSection
	SubSection "Display"
		Depth		16
		Modes		"1024x768"
	EndSubSection
	SubSection "Display"
		Depth		24
		Modes		"1024x768"
	EndSubSection
EndSection
Section "ServerLayout"
	Identifier	"Default Layout"
	Screen		"Default Screen"
	InputDevice	"Generic Keyboard"
	InputDevice	"Generic Mouse"
EndSection

[VulpiArgenti]

From struggling with this in the past, I think I remember that these settings are now controlled by HAL/udev. If you don't want to become an expert in these, the more pragmatic approach is to put your synclient commands in a bash script, and auto-run it each start-up.

[hubbard]

VulpiArgenti,

Actually, that's exactly what I've done in the mean time.
I figured there must be a better or more appropriate method, but if it requires a bunch of research and learning for little benefit, I think I'll just stick with the bash script like you suggest.

Thanks!

[maverik35]

Indeed my friend Vulpi, excelent approach: evdev is the xorg input driver, the kernel uses the evdev to access input devices. The evdev "is an event informant" to the kernel, jus to put it is some perspective.

As a matter of fact you can check the /dev/input folder and you can see all the events (input events)...

Hubbard, Did you created the xorg.conf?

See if you have the /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d
In there you have a evdev.conf, edit it, but before you try to do something with it, back it up...

If so, you need to work with it, and perhaps you created a xorg.conf and moved it.

Please, let us know...