My Touchpad and Keyboard Solutions for Ubuntu on CR-48 (Updated)

Update (09/09/20110): I no longer use CR-48 because of its hardware limitation. The solutions in this post may not be working as Chrome OS kernel is updated frequently. Sorry for the disappointment.

Update (01/05/2010): As Pheonix7117 pointed out in the comment, here is the fix to the Touchpad issue in Ubuntu. Note that you don’t need to do the first step (Downgrade Xorg) and the last step (Broken Packages) if you are running Lucid (Ubuntu 10.04) on the CR-48.

Update (12/26/2010): For those of you never read comments (like me), Pheonix7117 has posted another tip for vertical scrolling using the touchpad. Here is the direct copy of Pheonix7117′s comment:

Here’s a temporary workaround to get *some* amount of scrolling working in the meantime:If you install the package ‘gpointing-device-settings’ it will add a menu entry to System > Preferences called Pointing Devices.
It *should* list a device called “PS/2 Synaptics TouchPad”.
What I did was enable wheel emulation and changed it to button 3 (which I believe is right click) and enabled vertical scroll. I left timeout and inertia default (inertia seems to be 0, timeout is fairly short) and left middle button emulation unchecked. This enables a regular right click when doing a ‘hard’ click in the bottom right corner without lingering, and if you hold the right click you can swipe a finger up or down to scroll. Granted, this isn’t using the touchpad driver at all as this is supposed to be used for regular mice, but it’s a start for getting by for now.

Update (12/21/2010): Pheonix7117 posted a Python script for controlling the xbacklight in the comments section. I only have a little understanding of Python language, but I think it’s a well-written script to control the backlight with the keyboard.

Introduction

Ever since I installed Ubuntu on CR-48, I wondered about how to improve the touchpad speed and keyboard functions. I experimented with the touchpad driver today and noticed that while I can enable the touchpad tab inside the Mouse property with xinput, the options under the touchpad tab doesn’t seem to take any effect. Therefore I have to find Â other ways to configure the touchpad. The keyboard configuration was easy since all the functions are available in Ubuntu except for the right click, caps-lock and delete keys.

Touchpad

General setup - Under the general tab in the Mouse Preferences, move theÂ AccelerationÂ andÂ Sensitivity sliders to the max fast and high respectively so that the cursor could move a little fast and reduce the chance to accidentally tap the touchpad while typing.

Left click and right click - The bottom left and bottom rightÂ cornersÂ of the touchpad recognize by Ubuntu as the left and right buttons, while toward middle of the touchpad doesn’t have any click event.

Middle click (Scrolling wheel) – I usually use the middle click on web pages when I want to open a link in a new tab. It doesn’t have a middle button on the touchpad. However, I can use Ctrl + tap to open a link to a new tab in most of the browsers. As for the most of the applications I use, none of them has middle click event except for games, which cannot run on this notebook because of the hard drive space limit.

Keyboard

The brightness keys – Install the xbacklight package, and assign the following commands to the correspondingÂ keys on the first row of the keyboard through Keyboard Shortcuts window:

xbacklight -dec 10 Â  Â  # Decrease the backlight by 10
xbacklight -inc 10 Â  Â  Â # Increase the backlight by 10

The volume mute, decrease volume, and increase volume keys - Change the default shortcuts for Volume mute, Volume down, and Volume up in the Keyboard Shortcuts window to the appropriate keys on the top row of the keyboard.

Right click, caps-lock and delete keys - As I stated earlier, I cannot find the functions for these keys since they are not available on the keyboard. However, you can use some remapping programs to remap these keys to the available keys.

Questions

Do you have any other touchpad and keyboard related tips for CR-48? Please share them below. Also leave a comment below if you have any questions for this topic.

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26 comments - What do you think? Posted by Robby - 12/20/2010 at 11:51 PM

Categories: GNU/Linux, Google, Open Source Tags: Chrome OS, CR-48, GNU/Linux, Google, keyboard, touchpad, Ubuntu

Mohdmir
When im trying to set the back light it gives me error “No outputs have backlight property”
any idea how this can be fixed?

http://blog2.robbychen.com/ Robby
Hi, sorry for the disappointment. I don’t use CR-48 anymore. However, I remembered that this error was displayed when I executed the xbacklight on a normal laptop that doesn’t have backlight display. If you want to use this program to set the backlight property other than CR-48. First to make sure that it has backlight display, otherwise it will display this error.
Also, because of I used the CR-48 a long time ago and Google manufactured the real Chrome Book, I’m not sure that the tips in this post still apply.

Pingback: cr-48: dual booting with ubuntu « Capricious Me
Inimitablesikh
How do I install the xbacklight? I don’t know how

http://blog2.robbychen.com/ Robby
It’s pretty simple to install. Just type the following command into the terminal:
sudo apt-get install xbacklight

http://www.google.com/profiles/TJundoria TJ
What am I supposed to do after I install it?
P.S. I’m inimitablesikh
When I install it, I think I’m doing something wrong because the commands aren’t working..

http://blog2.robbychen.com/ Robby
Which commands did you type in the terminal?
The following command decrease the brightness by 10%:
xbacklight -dec 10
And the following command increase the brightness by 10%:
xbacklight -inc 10
Note that if you want to use keyboard shortcuts to control this command, you can follow Pheonix7117′s instruction in the comments section of this post.

Inimitablesikh
Well, I’ve installed xbacklight like you said, but I still can’t figure out how to map the to the keys on the keyboard. I have no clue how the python script works. Could you further elaborate? In “noob” terms, please?

http://blog2.robbychen.com/ Robby
Sure. Based on Pheonix7117′s instruction, go to http://pastebin.com/gDEvFjua and click the DOWNLOAD link. After the download is finished, rename the filename to whatever you like with the file extension of .py
I assume you downloaded the file to your home folder. After the renaming, move your mouse onto the top menu which contains Application, Places, and System. Navigate to System -> Preferences -> Keyboard Shortcuts, click to open it. After the setup window is opened, click the Add button at the bottom right of the window. In the new window, enter the name you want the shortcut to be, for example, increase brightness. In the command field, you should enter the following:
python /home/USER/brightness.py up
After it’s all setup, close the window by press the Apply button, and click the right column of the item you just added. The “New Shortcut …” text appears and you can assign at least two key combination to setup the keyboard shortcut. After the setup, you can press the shortcut key combination you just setup to test it if it’s working. If not, you probably missed some of the above steps.
Otherwise, continue to setup the decrease brightness shortcut similar to the above steps, except enter the following into the command field:
python /home/USER/brightness.py dn
And make sure to assign a different shortcut key combination to the decrease brightness. Otherwise, it will not let you assign the same key combination.
Hope this helps.

Kevin Seng
I’m kinda late but I tried this and it doesnt seem to work. When I try to invoke the script straight through the command line I get this error:
user@cr-48-ubuntu:~$ sudo python brightness.py dn
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “brightness.py”, line 31, in
cases[len(sys.argv)]()
File “brightness.py”, line 7, in get
currentLevel = int(float(sp.Popen(“xbacklight -get”, shell=True, stdout=sp.PIPE, stderr=sp.PIPE).communicate()[0].strip()))
ValueError: could not convert string to float:
user@cr-48-ubuntu:~$ sudo python brightness.py up
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “brightness.py”, line 31, in
cases[len(sys.argv)]()
File “brightness.py”, line 7, in get
currentLevel = int(float(sp.Popen(“xbacklight -get”, shell=True, stdout=sp.PIPE, stderr=sp.PIPE).communicate()[0].strip()))
ValueError: could not convert string to float:
any idea what is wrong here? I assume its something I did wrong, but I’ve run though the instructions 4 times now with no luck.

http://blog2.robbychen.com/ Robby
Hi Kevin,
According to your description, the brightness.py script you copied are probably broken. However, you stated that invoking the xbacklight command gave you an “no outputs have backlight property” error. Did you run this command under CR-48 or another PC? If it’s on CR-48, it should have no such error message. I experienced this error message when I ran this command on my laptop which I think the LCD does not have backlight.
Hope this helps.

Greatgodey
Hi I installed ubuntu 11.04 on my cr48 this afternoon and have tried both methods but none seem to have any effect. When I press the keyboard combination nothing happens. Meanwhile all the other key board shortcuts i tried worked including del, home and end. Is there something I am missing. I have xbacklight installed.

http://blog2.robbychen.com/ Robby
I’m sorry, I no longer use CR-48 long ago because of the limitation of hard drive space and the hardware limitation. Please look for other resources on the internet to help with your issue. Sorry about that.
justincase
I’m running 11.04 as well and get the same error, it must have something to do with 11. Oh well :-/

Pheonix7117
Sorry forgot to attach the script:
#!/usr/bin/env python
import sys
import subprocess as sp
def get():
currentLevel = int(float(sp.Popen(“xbacklight -get”, shell=True, stdout=sp.PIPE, stderr=sp.PIPE).communicate()[0].strip()))
if sys.argv[1] == “up”:
change(str(currentLevel + 20))
else:
change(str(currentLevel – 20))
def given():
currentLevel = int(float(sys.argv[2]))
if sys.argv[1] == “up”:
change(str(currentLevel + 20))
else:
change(str(currentLevel – 20))
def change(newLevel):
command = “xbacklight -time 0 -steps 1 -set ” + newLevel
result = sp.Popen(command, shell=True, stdout=sp.PIPE, stderr=sp.PIPE).communicate()[0].strip()
print result, command
cases = {1 : lambda : sys.exit(0),
2 : get,
3 : given
}
cases[len(sys.argv)]()

http://blog2.robbychen.com/ Robby
Thanks for the script, Pheonix7117.
As for the touchpad, not only Ubuntu detects it as “PS/2 Synaptic Touchpad”, Chrome OS also uses the same driver (name). I’m not sure this is a touchpad or a mouse. The options inside the Mouse Preferences are almost useless.

Pheonix7117
By the way, I just noticed that all the formatting in the script is no longer correct, which, in Python, renders the script useless. Here is a link to the script where one can download it properly: http://pastebin.com/gDEvFjua
I’m actually in the middle of looking through a bunch of threads and comments on various websites to see if I can figure out a solution for the touchpad. I’m about to boot into Chrome OS and see if I can find any clues in that, but currently I think it comes down to the issue that the device is seen as a “PS/2 Synaptics TouchPad” and not a “SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad” because it’s a newer Synaptics device. I’ll probably comment again here if I find anything new…. Wish me luck

http://blog2.robbychen.com/ Robby
No wonder I didn’t find anything about this device. I even tried to replace the Ubuntu driver with Chrome OS’s, and end up with broken wireless and audio drivers. I hope you have better luck than me

Pheonix7117
Hmm well from the following thread: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=110208
it seems that it uses the closed-source driver stored at /opt/Synaptics (?)…..no idea how to use it in Ubuntu though :-/ Maybe the people at archlinux will have some luck?

Pheonix7117
Here’s a temporary workaround to get *some* amount of scrolling working in the meantime:
If you install the package ‘gpointing-device-settings’ it will add a menu entry to System > Preferences called Pointing Devices.
It *should* list a device called “PS/2 Synaptics TouchPad”.
What I did was enable wheel emulation and changed it to button 3 (which I believe is right click) and enabled vertical scroll. I left timeout and inertia default (inertia seems to be 0, timeout is fairly short) and left middle button emulation unchecked. This enables a regular right click when doing a ‘hard’ click in the bottom right corner without lingering, and if you hold the right click you can swipe a finger up or down to scroll. Granted, this isn’t using the touchpad driver at all as this is supposed to be used for regular mice, but it’s a start for getting by for now.

http://blog2.robbychen.com/ Robby
I have been hacking around in the Chrome OS these day but I accomplished nothing because of the read-only file system for the root. I hate this type of lock down
Anyway, thanks for the tip.

Pheonix7117
Yeah, reminds me of Apple Is there any way you can hack around in it from Ubuntu? Or are you trying to modify Chrome OS itself?

http://blog2.robbychen.com/ Robby
No, the root partition and another partition can’t even mount in Ubuntu, except the stateful partition. What I was trying to do is to run some command line programs directly in Chrome OS without switching to Ubuntu. I already set the PATH to /tmp/ubuntu/usr/bin and /tmp/ubuntu/bin, etc, but they won’t run because of the missing dependencies, such as GCC. I tried to copy this files to /etc, but it’s not writable even with root

Pheonix7117
http://cr-48.wikia.com/wiki/Getting_the_Trackpad_Working_in_Ubuntu
This person managed to get the driver from Chrome running in Ubuntu! The previous link is his howto for Ubuntu on the new wikia he set up.
http://blog2.robbychen.com/ Robby
Thanks for sharing. I’m using Lucid on the notebook so I don’t need to do the first step

Pheonix7117
I recently installed Ubuntu on my CR-48 as well and ran into similar issues. I did the same thing as you for the volume buttons, however for brightness I found that binding keyboard shortcuts to “xbacklight -dec/inc 10″ didn’t work for some reason. My work around was the following quick and dirty python script. To use it, bind a keyboard shortcut for raising the brightness (I’m using Mod4+F7) to run this script with the argument “up”.
For example: /home/user/pyChangeBrightness.py up
And for lowering brightness: /home/user/pyChangeBrightness.py dn
Don’t forget to replace “user” with your username, assuming you’ve saved the script in your home directory as pyChangeBrightness.py
I do find that it normally takes a few more times to raise the brightness the same level as decreasing it, but it’s probably a bug in my script. Also, the script will take a preset brightness level to change from, but that’s irrelevant for this use.
In terms of the touchpad, I googled around and it seems that normally, Synaptic Touchpads are discovered by Ubuntu as “SynPS/2 Synaptic Touchpad”, whereas the one in the CR-48′s are discovered as “PS/2 Synaptic Touchpad”, resulting in the more advanced synaptics driver never being loaded for the touchpad. I haven’t found a solution to this yet, but I’m hoping it’s a simple fix.

My Touchpad and Keyboard Solutions for Ubuntu on CR-48 (Updated)

Introduction

Touchpad

Keyboard

Questions

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