CentOS - Mar 2013 - Touchpad doesn't work with C6, kernel-related...

Hi folks! :-)

I have a Fujitsu Lifebook U series laptop running updated CentOS 6.4
(64bit), and the touchpad doesn't work. It's a new laptop, the touchpad
works correctly in Fedora 18 Live (given the kernel parameters below),
no hardware problems.

I searched the web all around, and it's a known issue for several
laptop models. The only solution, quoted everywhere, it is to append the

  i8042.notimeout i8042.nomux

to the kernel parameters. The problem is that the latest CentOS6 kernel
(2.6.32-358.2.1.el6.x86_64) doesn't appear to recognize these. Or it
otherwise ignores them. I did append the parameters, but (unlike in
Fedora) the touchpad is still dead.

This laptop is to be used by a noob user who needs a LTS distro and is
already accustomed to CentOS, so a more modern distro like Fedora or
Ubuntu is not an option.

What can be done about this? Would a CentOSplus kernel work? It is
somehow too lousy to tell the client "The touchpad of your brand-new
laptop doesn't work because CentOS is too old, use an USB mouse
instead".

Any advice appreciated.

TIA, :-)
Marko

On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 7:04 AM, Marko Vojinovic <vvmarko at gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> Hi folks! :-)
>
> I have a Fujitsu Lifebook U series laptop running updated CentOS 6.4
> (64bit), and the touchpad doesn't work. It's a new laptop, the
touchpad
> works correctly in Fedora 18 Live (given the kernel parameters below),
> no hardware problems.
>
> I searched the web all around, and it's a known issue for several
> laptop models. The only solution, quoted everywhere, it is to append the
>
>   i8042.notimeout i8042.nomux
>
> to the kernel parameters. The problem is that the latest CentOS6 kernel
> (2.6.32-358.2.1.el6.x86_64) doesn't appear to recognize these. Or it
> otherwise ignores them. I did append the parameters, but (unlike in
> Fedora) the touchpad is still dead.
>
> This laptop is to be used by a noob user who needs a LTS distro and is
> already accustomed to CentOS, so a more modern distro like Fedora or
> Ubuntu is not an option.
>
> What can be done about this? Would a CentOSplus kernel work? It is
> somehow too lousy to tell the client "The touchpad of your brand-new
> laptop doesn't work because CentOS is too old, use an USB mouse
> instead".
>
> Any advice appreciated.
>
> TIA, :-)
> Marko
Just did a quick check. The current CentOS kernel (centosplus kernel
as well) seems to have code for i8042.nomux but not i8042.notimeout in
linux/drivers/input/serio/i8042.c .

You might want to give ELRepo's kernel-ml a try:

http://elrepo.org/tiki/kernel-ml

It is the latest mainline kernel that runs on CentOS.

Akemi