Thursday, August 28, 2014

How to fix MacBook Pro touchpad on Ubuntu 14.04

I spend few long hours to try to fix default crappy touchpad behavior, before finally I got to this.
And by "crappy" I mean: not working gestures, buttons clicked on random, cannot properly select text, etc... basic test: you simply cannot play solitaire ;-).

Finally I found mtrack! 

3 easy steps:
1) install
sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-input-mtrack

2) at the bottom of configuration add those settings (instead vi you could use nano/gedit):
sudo vi /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-synaptics.conf


my settings are:
Section "InputClass"
        MatchIsTouchpad "on"
        Identifier      "Touchpads"
        Driver          "mtrack"
        Option          "Sensitivity" "0.95"
        Option          "FingerHigh" "12"
        Option          "FingerLow" "1"
        Option          "IgnoreThumb" "true"
        Option          "IgnorePalm" "true"
        Option          "TapButton1" "0"
        Option          "TapButton2" "0"
        Option          "TapButton3" "0"
        Option          "TapButton4" "0"
        Option          "ClickFinger1" "1"
        Option          "ClickFinger2" "3"
        Option          "ClickFinger3" "3"
        Option          "ButtonMoveEmulate" "false"
        Option          "ButtonIntegrated" "true"
        Option          "ClickTime" "25"
        Option          "BottomEdge" "25"
        Option          "SwipeLeftButton" "8"
        Option          "SwipeRightButton" "9"
        Option          "SwipeUpButton" "0"
        Option          "SwipeDownButton" "0"
        Option          "ScrollDistance" "75"
        Option          "ScrollUpButton" "5"
        Option          "ScrollDownButton" "4"
EndSection

note ScrollUpButton/ScrollDownButton - changed to default apple like behavior ("natural");

3) restart and enjoy:

sudo restart lightdm



26 comments:

  1. Was about to give up with Ubuntu on my old MBP.
    mtrack provides much better control of the touchpad.
    Many thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Fresh install of Ubuntu 15.04 on a MacBook Pro 8,2 system. Really annoying, almost painfully unusable defaults for the touchpad. These instructions made a big difference. Much better now. Instructions worked flawlessly, except that on Ubuntu 15.04 step 3 of the instructions is replaced with

    systemctl restart lightdm

    And note this will restart your desktop, causing you to lose any unsaved work.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi. Thanks for the post. Here is my config which works well on a Macbook Air 6,1 (running under Gnome Ubuntu).

    Section "InputClass"
    MatchIsTouchpad "on"
    Identifier "Touchpads"
    Driver "mtrack"
    Option "Sensitivity" "0.65"
    Option "FingerHigh" "12"
    Option "FingerLow" "4"
    Option "IgnoreThumb" "true"
    Option "IgnorePalm" "true"
    Option "TapButton1" "0"
    Option "TapButton2" "0"
    Option "TapButton3" "0"
    Option "TapButton4" "0"
    Option "ClickFinger1" "1"
    Option "ClickFinger2" "3"
    Option "ClickFinger3" "3"
    Option "ButtonMoveEmulate" "true"
    Option "ButtonIntegrated" "true"
    Option "ClickTime" "25"
    Option "BottomEdge" "40"
    Option "SwipeLeftButton" "8"
    Option "SwipeRightButton" "9"
    Option "SwipeUpButton" "0"
    Option "SwipeDownButton" "0"
    Option "ScrollDistance" "75"
    Option "ScrollUpButton" "4"
    Option "ScrollDownButton" "5"
    Option "ThumbSize" "35"
    Option "PalmSize" "55"
    Option "DisableOnThumb" "false"
    Option "DisableOnPalm" "true"
    Option "SwipeDistance" "1000"
    Option "ScrollLeftButton" "7"
    Option "ScrollRightButton" "6"
    Option "AccelerationProfile" "2"
    Option "ConstantDeceleration" "2.0" # Decelerate endspeed
    Option "AdaptiveDeceleration" "2.0" # Decelerate slow movements
    EndSection

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! That's the best set of parameters I've used.

      Delete
  4. How to fix MacBook Pro touchpad on Ubuntu 14.04 ... emacbookair.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  5. This post is great ... if anything the trackpad is now sensitive to movement but I seem to be getting used to it!

    ReplyDelete
  6. It works very nicely, except that now I can't reveal my unity sidebar! I'd prefer not to have to press the command key every time, and there may be other features which I don't know I'm missing! any suggestions?

    ReplyDelete
  7. I can't edit the file in terminal or when I open it in gedit. It says I don't have permission when I try to edit the file in gedit.

    thanks

    ReplyDelete
  8. After I added the settings to the config file and restarted, by mouse was no longer visible. I had to remove the settings I added and restart again to restore my mouse. What happened?

    ReplyDelete
  9. Hi, I lost cursor , mouse and touchpad since I activated this mtrack. I removed but not able to get cursor back. Please help

    ReplyDelete
  10. Hi, I lost cursor , mouse and touchpad since I activated this mtrack. I removed but not able to get cursor back. Please help

    ReplyDelete
  11. Please reply to ajayshankar0gmail.com

    I am using Ubuntu 14.04 on hp-530-notebook. Please help

    ReplyDelete
  12. it's trash.... it doesn't work on my MacBook Pro running zorin OS 9.

    ReplyDelete
  13. it's trash.... it doesn't work on my MacBook Pro running zorin OS 9.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I don't know if you can help me but i tried your code and now my touch pad is disabled. Any ideas on what I can try to get it back working?

    ReplyDelete
  15. Magic Trackpad is working fine in ubuntu 14.04 from out of the box, but I can't change workspace with three fingers. At least four fingers is working when hiding taskbar.
    Then I decided to try this one. I got this error while installing driver:

    sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-input-mtrack
    Reading package lists... Done
    Building dependency tree
    Reading state information... Done
    Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
    requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
    distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
    or been moved out of Incoming.
    The following information may help to resolve the situation:

    The following packages have unmet dependencies:
    xserver-xorg-input-mtrack : Depends: xorg-input-abi-20
    Depends: xserver-xorg-core (>= 2:1.14.99.902)
    E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have the same error. :) Did you solve it? Funny you were trying this just a month ago.

      Delete
    2. I had the same problem - the package cannot be installed because it depends on another package, which is not installed on the system. Solution:

      sudo apt-get install xorg-input-abi-20

      Then go back and try again with

      sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-input-mtrack

      That should solve your problem.

      Delete
  16. In ubuntu 16.04 you should use the mtrack driver from here "https://github.com/p2rkw/xf86-input-mtrack". The dirver in the apt is old and not maintained. After having problems with scrolling, i compiled and installed it from the site. Ther are no problems now and you have more settings for the tochpad.

    ReplyDelete
  17. I've tried this twice now, and both times it essentially bricked the Ubuntu install. I'm on a 2012 Macbook running Sierra, trying to dual boot 16.04.2 Gnome. Each time I've done what you suggested, and after I restart, the keyboard and trackpad don't respond. Even plugging in USB keyboards/mice doesn't help.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Thanks for sharing information
    Solution Macbook A1708 A1709 keyboard got liquid so difficult hard to press
    Here a solution

    ReplyDelete
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