I am running Ubuntu 13.04 on a Dell Inspiron 17R SE. It has an ALPS touchpad.
The problem is that this touchpad has backlash. By this I mean that if I move the cursor in one direction and then reverse it, I will have to move my finger a short distance before it starts moving again. I have also noticed this behavior on a Fujitsu Lifebook with Ubuntu 13.10.
The experience is very similar to the mechanical phenomenon that is nicely explained in this Wikipedia article.
Has anyone else experienced this? Is it a flaw in the hardware or something that could be debugged and corrected in software?
xev
, and put the mouse in the window that appears. Does the relevant output appear in the terminal before the mouse starts moving?