Hi
I just bought a Dell inspiron 5575 with AMD ryzen 5 and radeon graphics and partitioned the hdd to dual boot with w10. The thing is that the touchpad is uncontrollable. I’ve tried many combinations for the last 2 days and is very furstrating trying to use dolphin, for example, for the cursor ‘drags’ everything. Every file opens at the least touch. In FireFox the back or forward arrows become uncontrollabe. The “sensitivity” i thought, but if i change the sensitivity, the cursor won’t respond.
If i move the cursor between windows, it drags them. Any ideas on how to solve this will be more than welcome.
Also, I installed a couple of applications, cherry (notes) and gvim but, even though they appear installed in yast, i donot find them. Any help will be very appreciated.
Finally, do you know where to find a manual on how to handle the integrated battery so it lasts years?
Thanks
I use a USB mouse (currently a logitech M325). There’s a KDE setting to disable the touchpad whenever a mouse is plugged in. So the only time I have to mess with the touchpad is during login, or if I ever login to Icewm.
The setting is at:
Configure Desktop → Input Devices → Touchpad → Enable/Disable Touchpad
A small wireless mouse is not very expensive. And you can roll them on the laptop to the right of the touchpad.
For me, a touchpad is not workable. When typing, my fingers are low and they can’t help but brush against the touchpad. So disabling the touchpad is what works here.
Other people use a touchpad quite effectively. It seems to vary from person to person.
Hi,
I appreciate very much your replies. I have Tumbleweed in another laptop and the touchpad is very ‘confortable’, but in the new one just seems “untameable”. I thought the possibility of a ‘driver’s issue’.
Any suggestions for the battery?
Thanks
Maybe. But I suspect it has more to do with the hardware.
If you use “click to focus” (which is the default), then it is mainly the tapping that causes problems. And some touchpads are more sensitive than others, with respect to tapping.
I prefer “focus follows mouse” which makes it worse.
Any suggestions for the battery?
I have not had any problems with battery. But I suppose that’s because my laptop us usually plugged in.
I had an older laptop (now recycled) where I had battery problems. I eventually found out that the laptop was using a significant amount of current even when powered off. So, if left unplugged for a long time it would drain the battery and damage it. For that laptop, I got into the habit of removing the battery if I had to leave it unplugged for an extended period. I am not seeing that problem with my current laptop.
Your question about battery maintenance can be itnerpreted at least a couple ways…
I don’t think there is any magic tool that can extend battery life, batteries will just work until they won’t.
But, there are a few general things about Lion and Lipoly batteries you should be aware of…
Unlike NiCad batteries in ancient machines, there is no battery “memory” so you never need to discharge the battery completely, you can re-charge your battery no matter if there is a little or a lot of charge still in the battery, and as often as you wish. There is also no problem “topping off” your charge.
Unlike NiCad batteries, it’s actually bad to allow your battery to go dead completely. Never allow your battery to go completely dead, it’s one way to prematurely kill your battery and each time this happens your battery is damaged a bit.
Know that unlike NiCad batteries which have a sloping output profile, Lithium batteries have steep shoulders which means that there is a steep dropoff only when your battery is nearly dead… Your battery will provide a consistent output no matter how much charge is in your battery almost up the point there is no charge left.
If you don’t abuse your battery, the electronics that automatically manage your battery both in the battery itself and in your laptop should automatically optimize and do what’s best.
Separate from trying to extend the life of your battery,
Linux (and openSUSE) can manage your hardware to power down devices that suck enormous amounts of energy according to settings and profiles you can set.
The following two references describe how power management works and what you can do to tweak as you wish… Almost all of any ArchWiki article works on an openSUSE machine, and TLP is probably your main tool if you’re not into granular settings.
Have you tried using the “Disable touchpad when typing” (and the associated timeout value) option? (Also under “System Settings -> Input Devices -> Touchpad - Enable/Disable Touchpad”)
Thank you so very much for all of your suggestions. I will follow them and report what I find, both for the touchpad and the battery. Good information for the battery which I didn’t know. Thank you.
