How to get the touch pad working in Chromium OS

If you are one of the few with a none working touch pad, hopefully the below will sort it!

As ever, boot your device and get to su command line  ([ Ctrl ] [ Alt ] [ F2 ]), log in as chronos and then

sudo su
mount -o remount, rw /
cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-touchpad-cmt.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-touchpad-cmt.conf.bak
rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-touchpad-cmt.conf
cd /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/
wget http://chromium.arnoldthebat.co.uk/files/fw/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-touchpad-cmt.conf

Then reboot.

The contents of the conf file have been ripped from a Dell Latitude setup so may well not sort other laptops. In this case I would suggest that the file is structured in the following manner:

Section "InputClass"
 Identifier "touchpad"
 MatchIsTouchpad "on"
 MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
 Driver "synaptics"
 Option "AccelerationProfile" "-1"
 Option "Scroll Buttons" "0"
 Option "Scroll Axes" "1"
 Option "Scroll X Out Scale" "1.25"
 Option "Scroll Y Out Scale" "1.25"
EndSection

The important section is the “Driver “synaptics”” since the devs at Chromium have left the old synaptics stack loaded into the distribution. With this in mind, expect the above to stop working as later versions come out!

Occasionally in certain screens (like login(!)), once the screen is loaded, the mouse pointer will not appear. In order to activate simply left click anywhere on the screen.

Any dev server updates will more than likely undo any of the above so please bear that in mind.

Usual caveats around none of this ever working etc.

164 thoughts on “How to get the touch pad working in Chromium OS”

    1. Arnold:

      Thanks a lot – my wife had an old laptop which has been repurposed thanks to you. Just got the touch pad working, the rest is going well.

  1. I’m not sure how I found your site, but goddamn am i glad I did. This touchpad thing has been bothering me for days. And it was that easy. So today you have an anonymous stranger’s thanks.

  2. Wow thanks man!
    This totally worked for me 😀
    I got a problem typing the right letters in the command, it’s because my keyboard on my laptop is AZERTY. But anyway that doesn’t matter
    Worked for Chromium OS, booted from USB 2.0 4GB. Build 3775.
    Probably will work for newer version I believe.

    Anyway, I got a request. Can you make a post about enabling Flash Player in Chromium OS?
    I found how and it worked for me. But it took me 2 hours to look it up on the internet, and your site was the first I countered.
    Here are the steps:
    1. Start Chromium OS
    2. Log in
    3. Press Ctrl+Alt+F2
    4. Log in as user: chronos
    password: facepunch
    5. Enter the command:
    sudo su
    and log in with the password: facepunch
    6. Enter the following:
    curl -L http://goo.gl/R4Amj | bash
    7. Wait for it to finish, you will be taken back to the log in screen and everything should be working.
    8. No reboot necessary

    Note that AZERTY keyboards are seen as QWERTY in the command.

    Cheers 😀
    -Techrodd

    1. I installed chrome OS, thank you.
      But now I have a problem – password (facepunch and other like chonos, croneos. chrome etc) is incorrect. I don’t know what to do… Could you help me, please

  3. Everytime when I begin writing anything with my keyboard I have to reactivate the Driver by clicking with the Left/Right Button. Does someone know why I have to do that and how I could make it not to need that?

  4. And my other problem is also:

    It doesn’t use the Synaptics Touchpad like a normal mouse:

    I can’t move Windows,
    it doesn’t scroll down the favorite bar,
    it isn’t able to copy+paste a text.

    What can I also do against that?

      1. No, there wasn’t any way. I also copied Touchpad Config Files from an much older build but with the same options and it also didn’t “mount” the device. So it has something to do with the OS itself.

        Doesn’t anybody have an idea? 🙁

  5. Thanks Arnold. The touchpad now works. But the buttons still don’t. Is there anything I can do about that?

    Thanks in advance!

  6. Your post was a great help getting it to work.
    The problem I’m now facing is that the position I click is not the position my machine thinks I click.
    When I move the cursor from the top of the screen downwards there is an ever increasing offset to the bottom right. This makes using the touchpad virtually impossible without straining the eyes for GUI updates.
    I have read utterings of the GMA 950 driver being a bum all the way to “your screen is in the wrong ratio”.
    I’m running the most recent Hexxeh build (20th April), and have concluded it has this same problem as my own build did (yes I went that far to trying to get it to work).
    In the settings it says that no touchpad or mouse has been detected, yet the cursor responds to touch and can be moved around. Besides this very annoying flaw, Chromium OS is really fun to play with.
    Any idea on what could cause this problem and even more so, how to fix it?

  7. Got the cursor moving but the aim is a bit off and random.
    I can’t click the element the cursor is on, instead it acts on something a distance from it.

  8. Hi, I am working on my first chromium build and i was wondering how to support synaptics and ALPS touch pads so that people dont have to put a code in to make them work…..im new at this and did compile a working image….just no mouse lol….
    any advice?

  9. When I typed in line 3 it says
    “cp: cannot stat ‘/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-touchpad-cmt.conf’ : no such file or directory”

    Any ideas?

  10. Even after trying this solution my touchpad is still now working. if i do grep -i i get N: Name=”SynPS/2 Synaptics Touchpad” I have tried everything for weeks now. When i plug in an external mouse it works fine and at the same time i can move the cursor using the touchpad. Need help

    1. Just like Richard, the fix doesn’t help me. If I plug in a mouse, I can get the touchpad to move whenever the cursor appears for the mouse but not click on anything with the touchpad. Furthermore, as soon as the cursor disappears (like when you type text) the touchpad no longer works again.
      I have a Lenovo B570.

  11. Hi
    I need help, dont know what else to do.
    Under Xorg.0.log it shows Touchpad found.
    If i run sudo od -x /dev/input/event6 I see bunch of numbers when i move the touchpad
    The touchpad works fine if i boot with Ubuntu 13.04.
    I even copied the Synaptics_drv.so for ubuntu to Chromium OS and still no luck.
    If i connect external mouse that works fine.
    Can the gurus tell me what i should check to resolve this?
    Thank you
    richard

    1. Hi Bertrand,

      what did you do exactly on your E1210? I have the same netbook and can’t get it to work…
      Would be glad if you could help me…

      Thanx in advance…

  12. This also works for my Samsung Q35 (NP-Q35C003/SEG).

    However Chrome doesn’t boot without an external mouse attached. Without another mouse, the screen just stays black…
    Does anyone have an idea about that issue?

  13. Thanks for this guide, my pad is working now!

    But, however when I hover over a button and click it, the actual region being clicked is far to the left. why is that? My new Chromebook is un-usable. 🙁

  14. Thank you for providing a great dev server. I am a novice and everything is working great for me. I would appreciate a sample script for getting the touch pad working (& how to execute it). You do not need to make my touch pad work, I just need a ‘sample’ of one that would work. I do not know the directory structure so start from scratch if possible. Sending a coffee donation! suenramk

    I am just copying this out of the sky as an example of what I need:
    Then CTL ALT F2 and login as “chronos”, password = “password”.
    Copy another required shell script to the Downloads directory:
    cp /usr/sbin/chromeos-common.sh to /home/chronos/user/Downloads
    Then
    sudo bash /home/chronos/user/Downloads/chromeos-install.txt.

  15. I think my original comment may have gotten lost so I will try again. I am looking for someone to tell me the way to execute a script such as those to fix a touch pad. Can you write all this in a .txt file? I know this is basic to most of you but maybe someone can give a simple example or explain what is inside a script & what commands are outside the script.

  16. I too have issues with touch pad and flash player. Sadly I can’t even get past the login to the “developer console”. The login chronos/face punch simply does not work for me. All tips and ideas are much, much appreciated!

    Many thanks for a really good site and all the work behind it!

  17. To solve the mouse position edit the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf

    And add in the Section “Screen” these lines:

    SubSection “Display”
    Modes “1280×720”
    EndSection

    Save the file and reboot. It’s the only resolution that solves the problem 😉

    1. hey, im sorry if this is a total noob question, but i am having the trackpad alignment problem as well. how do you edit it? what is the command to edit this file. i tried vi but that said [readonly]

    2. I’m trying chromium in my asus k53 e have that problem with the touchpad… can you explan how to add that definitions and edit the xorg.conf?

  18. The TouchPad fix helped make the touchpad work, it is off just a bit, so I”m going to try the fix FrankPine suggested and see if that helps. Thanks for the fix guys!

    I’m using Hexxeh’s 4/20 build. Would it be worth it to update to the latest build from your site, arnoldthebat? It’s easy enough to do, I’m just curious what I gain.

    I plan to try the Flash fix mentioned up above as well.

    My daughter has a ChromeBook at school and we have a NetBook that has been getting slower with Windows 7 but boots up and works great with Chromium, so I’m looking forward to surprising her with it once everything works the way it should.

    Thanks again for your help, great stuff! 🙂

  19. So I’ve got the touchpad sorta working on a Dell LatitudeE5500. It moves around just fine, but when I go to click, it clicks the area approx 2 inches directly to the left of the cursor. What value in the touchpad conf can I adjust to fix this problem?

    Thanks for all your help!

  20. Hey ArnoldTheBat, GREAT tutorial. The problem that I am having is kind of odd. When I use my mouse to move the courser everything works fine. (As in when I hover over objects they highlight, I can left and right click, etc.) but when I move the courser with my touch pad the courser does not highlight anything when I hover over it, and I cannot double tap or right and left click. Although I am able to move the courser with the touch pad. Any thoughts?

  21. Finally i could get the touchpad working. logged in as su and tried all methods. None worked. Got into the directory xorg.conf.d step by step and then ran wget from your site. it copied. and on rebooting the mouse was shown after I logged in as Admin. It is slow may be I’m on USB. But all functions are fine. May be I dont have the back up now, who cares!!!!

  22. Hey Arnold

    I installed Zhaotsu’s thing on my eeePC 1000h, and the touchpad works well

    EXCEPT for tapping, it does not recognise as a left click.

    I am a complete noob. How can I change settings so that a tap = left, click, two finger tap = right click etc?

    1. I’m also interested in this as well. Plus I’d like any pointers as to how to enable Australian scrolling (natural scrolling… Mac style scrolling… whatever you want to call it) if possible with the Synaptics pad.

      I’ve got Zhaotsu’s fix working which makes it a lot better than before in terms of responsiveness but these two features are greatly missed.

      Thanks beforehand for any help!

  23. Yes …it works almost on my Samsung Q45.
    Now i can move the mouse pointer with my touchpad, but can “click” nowhere. Also no scrolling possible.

  24. Hello!
    My touchpad works, but i can’t click. The cursor doesn’t change when I hover a text field.
    What can I do?

  25. Absolutely amazing! Just came here to say this little piece of code actually works!

    Protip: I didn’t have 50-touchpad-cmt.conf, mine was called 40-touchpad-cmt.conf, if you get an error regarding “Cannot find file”, just cd down into /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ and use ls to display the files there. Then do the script again but replace 50-touchpad with 40-touchpad and change it in the web url too.

    Thanks Arnold the Bat!

  26. my first time trying this out, using the latest 2014-06-28 build. I’m having the touchpad issue, but trying to use your directions to fix it, I get this:
    cp: cannot stat '/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-touchpad-cmt.conf' : No such file or directory

    has the file changed places in the newer builds?

  27. I am trying to get the touchpad working on my MacBook (2.2 GHz, late 2007). Before following these instructions, it didn’t work at all. Now, moving my finger moves the cursor, but it moves extremely slowly, and Settings tells me “No Mouse Detected”, so I can’t adjust sensitivity. It may or may not be related, but the original touchpad driver was titled “40-touchpad-cmt.conf”, instead of “50-touchpad-cmt.conf”. I have already tried both titles for the new driver. I am using the Broadcom build. Plugging in an external mouse works.
    I’d appreciate any help.

  28. Hi, I installed in my MSI u100. My wifi adapter is Realtek 8185se and it not work. Can you help me? Realtek published linux driver but I am new with linux and I am not sure if I can use.

    thanks in advanced
    german

  29. I can’t fix my touch pad due to this error. How to fix this?

    cp: cannot stat ‘/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-touchpad-cmt.conf’: No such file or directory

  30. Some time ago I was successful in finding an older Chromium version by Hexxeh which worked with my Acer notepads.

    In many of the versions, the mouse and touchpad either didn’t work or were almost unusable because they were extremely jerky.

    I lately tried one of the newer Arnold the Bat versions and also had difficulty with the mouse and touchpad.

    I have reverted to the latest posted Hexxeh version, but have replaced the following two files in the /etc/X11/config.d/ folder, 20-mouse.conf and 20-touchpad-cmt.conf from a Dec. 2011 Hexxeh version.

    The mouse and touchpad are now working perfectly.

  31. Replacing these files in the /etc/X11/config.d/ folder work well on the ACER NETBOOKS.

    Contents of 20-mouse.conf

    Identifier “generic mouse for Chromium OS”
    MatchIsPointer “on”
    MatchDevicePath “/dev/input/event*”
    # Map mouse vertical scroll wheel to buttons 8 and 9.
    # These scroll button events are only used for mice and processed slightly
    # differently in Chrome than buttons 4 and 5, which are used for trackpad
    # scrolling.
    # Also, disable buttons 10, 11, 12. The “6 7 8 9” before the
    # zeroed-out 10, 11, 12 is the default we were getting before.
    # crbug.com/223552
    Option “ButtonMapping” “1 2 3 8 9 6 7 8 9 0 0 0”
    # 3-Button Mouse emulation, while useful for copy/paste, causes mouse
    # clicks to miss their targets when the mouse is moving quickly.
    # This is particularly noticeable on quick click+drags.
    Option “Emulate3Buttons” “false”
    Option “AccelerationProfile” “8” # Chromium accel profile
    Option “VelocityScale” “1”
    Option “ConstantDeceleration” “1000”
    Option “Evdev Wheel Button Acceleration” “0”
    Option “Evdev Wheel Axes Acceleration” “1”
    # Some mice expose Absolute axes, which take precedence over relative,
    # which causes all axes valuator labels to be absolute. E.g., we get
    # ABS_X instead of REL_X for horizontal movement. This is especially
    # bad for scroll wheel activity, b/c Chrome looks for specific
    # relative valuators for that; if absolute valuators are used, scroll
    # wheel won’t work.
    Option “IgnoreAbsoluteAxes” “true”
    EndSection

    Section “InputClass”
    Identifier “Evdev for Elo TouchScreen”
    # For Elo TouchSystems 2700 IntelliTouch(r). This is a single touch device
    # and we simulate it as a mouse pointer.
    MatchUSBID “04e7:0020”
    MatchDevicePath “/dev/input/event*”
    Driver “evdev”
    # This should make X configure the device as pointer instead of keyboard
    Option “IgnoreAbsoluteAxes” “false”
    # We want a slave pointer, rather than floating slave.
    Option “SendCoreEvents” “true”
    Option “Calibration” “55 4075 80 4060”
    Option “InvertY” “1”
    Option “InvertX” “1”
    EndSection

    ================================================================================================

    Contents of 40-touchpad-cmt.conf

    # Configure touchpads to use xf86-input-synaptics X input driver
    Section “InputClass”
    Identifier “touchpad”
    MatchIsTouchpad “on”
    MatchDevicePath “/dev/input/event*”
    Driver “synaptics”
    Option “MinSpeed” “0.4”
    Option “MaxSpeed” “1.0”
    Option “AccelFactor” “0.0035”
    Option “HorizScrollDelta” “6”
    Option “VertScrollDelta” “18”
    Option “HorizEdgeScroll” “0”
    Option “VertEdgeScroll” “0”
    Option “TapButton1” “1”
    Option “TapButton2” “3”
    Option “TapButton3” “2”
    Option “MaxTapTime” “180”
    Option “FingerLow” “40”
    Option “FingerHigh” “43”
    Option “EmulateTwoFingerMinZ” “32”
    Option “VertTwoFingerScroll” “1”
    # Horizontal scrolling is disabled for now as it interferes w/ vertical.
    Option “HorizTwoFingerScroll” “0”
    # The resolutions were balanced for the Dell Latitudes
    Option “HorizResolution” “75”
    Option “VertResolution” “108”
    EndSection

  32. Moderator.

    The above 2 files were successful on my Acer NETBOOKS. I wanted to clear that up as I incorrectly stated otherwise in my posts.
    If you could correct the error I would be grateful.

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