Keyboard and touch pad not working on HP convertible x360 with Ubuntu 19.10

Question

Good day,

I have a HP convertible x360 with ubuntu 19.10 installed. With an external USB keyboard and mouse installed the system is usable. But the laptop keyboard and touchpad doesnt work.

I have done some research and tried to update/reinstall the x inputs but that doesnt work I use the following commands:

sudo apt install xserver-xorg-input-all

xinput

reboot

I also tied the following

sudo gedit /etc/default/grub

Added GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="i8042.nomux=1 locale=fr_FR i8042.reset"

sudo update-grub

reboot

But that didn't achive anything.

The grub edit was reversed.

here is the output of $ xinput list

⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer                id=4    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ KYE SYSTEMS CORP. Wired Mouse             id=9    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ ETPS/2 Elantech Touchpad                  id=16   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                     id=3    [master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard               id=5    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                              id=6    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Video Bus                                 id=7    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                              id=8    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳   USB Keyboard                            id=10   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳   USB Keyboard System Control             id=11   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳   USB Keyboard Consumer Control           id=12   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ HP Webcam: HP Webcam                      id=13   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Intel Virtual Button driver               id=14   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard              id=15   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ HP Wireless hotkeys                       id=17   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ HP WMI hotkeys                            id=18   [slave  keyboard (3)]                           

Any help and suggestions will be welcome for a Linux newb!!

Answer 1

So after a long and frustrating 3 day, I managed to get the Internal keyboard and touchpad working.

My solotuition is as follows:

1. Edit the grub defaults, my personal option is $sudo nano /etc/default/grub
2. edit the line containing "quiet splash" to read "quiet splash acpi=off"
3. Then run $sudo update-grub and sudo update-grub2
4. Reboot the system and it sould be working fine.

Answer 2

I had similar issues on my HP Envy 15-edxxx convertible running Ubuntu 20.04 (touchpad, touchscreen, pen, and audio not working). I upgraded the kernel to 5.9 and the issues basically fixed themselves, but 5.8 should be enough (you can test this with Ubuntu 20.10 live CD).

I suggest you a) Upgrade the kernel to 5.8 or higher. This isn't recommended, because the newer kernel versions may not be officially supported by your current Ubuntu version. b) Install Ubuntu 20.10 instead, which comes with the 5.8 kernel (according to this answer, there is not upgrade path from 19.04 to 20.04/20.10, which means you'll have to do a fresh install)

For a):

1. Check your current kernel version with uname -r
2. Download the mainline Linux kernel of your choice here. For 64bit architecture you'll need linux-headers-VERSION-NUMBER_all.deb, linux-headers-VERSION-NUMBER_amd64.deb, linux-image-VERSION-NUMBER_amd64.deb and linux-modules-VERSION-NUMBER_amd64.deb
3. Run sudo dpkg -i *.deb in the directory with the downloaded .deb files.
4. Reboot and enjoy :)

Source

For b):

1. Backup everything you need.
2. Download the .iso here.
3. Flash .iso onto USB or CD.
4. Install the new distro with the configuration of your choice.