ALPS Touchpad Scrolling support

Since I loose vertical scrolling support, every time I update the kernel and have to patch it again, I write a small "How-To".

This is for my Dell Latitude E5410 ALPS Touchpad, which have a lot of problem, not only on Dells. Simply because ALPS is very, very closed regarding open drivers or specifications (what makes no commercial sense, since they earn money with selling hardware, not with selling drivers for it).

This experience, however, forces me to not buy any Laptop with ALPS hardware anymore in the future. If you are a linux user and want to buy a new Laptop, ask your hardware vendor what Touchpad is used in your laptop. Do NOT buy machines with ALPS hardware or you will get problems with it.

This How-To is for ubuntu maverick (10.10) 32bit and the generic 2.6.35 Kernel. If you want to patch other kernels you have to search or the appropriate patch, compiled against your kernel, in the bugreport or patch and compile the psmouse.ko module by yourself.

Now to the task:

Backup the original psmouse module. You might end up with no mouse support at all after patching and want to undo the changes.

sudo cp /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/input/mouse/psmouse.ko /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/input/mouse/psmouse.ko.backup

Now download the psmouse.ko module from https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/550625/comments/194. The patch disables clicks when tabbing on the touchpad (this feature is annoying if you are writing text directly on the laptop and your arm accidentally tabs the touchpad) and enables vertical scrolling on 2.6.35 gerneric 32bit Kernels.
If you want to patch other kernels you have to search for the appropriate patch in the bugreport or patch and compile the psmouse.ko module by yourself.

If you have your correct psmouse.ko file, remove the original one with this command.

sudo rmmod psmouse

Now copy the downloaded (or newly compiled psmouse.ko)

sudo cp ./Downloads/psmouse.ko /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/input/mouse/

Now enable the new module

sudo modprobe psmouse 

If anything went wrong and you lost touchpad functionality, reverse the changes like this:

sudo rmmod psmouse 
sudo cp /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/input/mouse/psmouse.ko.backup /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/input/mouse/psmouse.ko
sudo modprobe psmouse