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Edit: this post previously stated that the mouse buttons didn't work at all. I only recently discovered that touching the touchpad can make the left button work like a clickpad.

I just bought a Dell Precision 7550, which has 3 separate physical mouse buttons beneath the touchpad. It came with Ubuntu 18.04, where these mouse buttons work as intended. However, I just did a fresh install of 20.04 alongside it, and the mouse buttons have gone funny: I can't make the right button do anything, while the middle button works normally. The left button behaves like the click of a clickpad: if I'm not touching the touchpad, it does nothing. If I touch the touchpad at the same time, however, then it works: either it issues a left click or, if I'm touching the bottom right corner of the touchpad, it issues a right click.

How do I make Ubuntu stop treating this like a clickpad, and register the physical mouse buttons?

In the (working) 18.04, xinput shows

⎡ Virtual core pointer                      id=2    [master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer                id=4    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ HID 05ac:0256 Consumer Control            id=12   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ HID 05ac:0256 Mouse                       id=13   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ DELL09C3:00 0488:120A Touchpad            id=20   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ PS/2 Generic Mouse                        id=25   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Microsoft Microsoft® 2.4GHz Transceiver v9.0 Consumer Control id=16   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Microsoft Microsoft® 2.4GHz Transceiver v9.0 Consumer Control id=19   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Microsoft Microsoft® 2.4GHz Transceiver v9.0 Mouse    id=28   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                     id=3    [master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard               id=5    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Video Bus                                 id=6    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Video Bus                                 id=7    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                              id=8    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Sleep Button                              id=9    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ HID 05ac:0256                             id=10   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ HID 05ac:0256 System Control              id=11   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Integrated_Webcam_HD: Integrate           id=14   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Intel HID events                          id=21   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Intel HID 5 button array                  id=22   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Dell WMI hotkeys                          id=23   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard              id=24   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ HID 05ac:0256 Consumer Control            id=26   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Microsoft Microsoft® 2.4GHz Transceiver v9.0 System Control   id=15   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Microsoft Microsoft® 2.4GHz Transceiver v9.0 Consumer Control id=17   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Microsoft Microsoft® 2.4GHz Transceiver v9.0  id=18   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Microsoft Microsoft® 2.4GHz Transceiver v9.0 Consumer Control id=27   [slave  keyboard (3)]

Whereas the (broken) 20.04 shows:

⎡ Virtual core pointer                      id=2    [master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer                id=4    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ HID 05ac:0256 Mouse                       id=11   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ HID 05ac:0256 Consumer Control            id=13   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ DELL09C3:00 0488:120A Mouse               id=20   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ DELL09C3:00 0488:120A Touchpad            id=21   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ PS/2 Generic Mouse                        id=27   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Microsoft Microsoft® 2.4GHz Transceiver v9.0 Mouse    id=16   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Microsoft Microsoft® 2.4GHz Transceiver v9.0 Consumer Control id=18   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Microsoft Microsoft® 2.4GHz Transceiver v9.0 Consumer Control id=29   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                     id=3    [master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard               id=5    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Video Bus                                 id=6    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Video Bus                                 id=7    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                              id=8    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Sleep Button                              id=9    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ HID 05ac:0256                             id=10   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ HID 05ac:0256 System Control              id=12   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Integrated_Webcam_HD: Integrate           id=14   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ DELL09C3:00 0488:120A UNKNOWN             id=22   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Intel HID events                          id=23   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Intel HID 5 button array                  id=24   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Dell WMI hotkeys                          id=25   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard              id=26   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ HID 05ac:0256 Consumer Control            id=28   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Microsoft Microsoft® 2.4GHz Transceiver v9.0  id=15   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Microsoft Microsoft® 2.4GHz Transceiver v9.0 System Control   id=17   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Microsoft Microsoft® 2.4GHz Transceiver v9.0 Consumer Control id=19   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Microsoft Microsoft® 2.4GHz Transceiver v9.0 Consumer Control id=30   [slave  keyboard (3)]

The Microsoft stuff is my USB mouse/keyboard. The only meaningful difference I see is the appearance of DELL09C3:00 0488:120A UNKNOWN on 20.04, suggesting some hardware isn't recognized, although everything that's recognized on 18.04 is also recognized on 20.04. /etc/X11 is nearly identical, with only some changes in Xsession.d/70im-config_launch, Xsession.d/90qt-a11y, app-defaults/XLogo, and app-defaults/XCalc, none of which look relevant, except possibly the removal of QT_LINUX_ACCESSIBILITY_ALWAYS_ON in 90qt-a11y.

2 Answers 2

1

Finally managed to fix it.

I first installed xserver-xorg-input-synaptics, and rebooted. The behavior didn't change, but the driver did change: xinput list-props "DELL09C3:00 0488:120A Touchpad" now has several new "synaptics" options, including Synaptics ClickPad which was set to 1. Setting it to 0 via xinput set-prop "DELL09C3:00 0488:120A Touchpad" "Synaptics ClickPad" 0 fixed the problem immediately.

This isn't terribly satisfying, as it's unclear why the touchpad is being detected as a clickpad in the first place. However, the touchpad is now usable, so I'm marking this as solved.

It's worth pointing out that others have reported the same issue, e.g. in this reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/Dell/comments/hw1o4c/dell_precision_laptop_7550_1_month_in/

3
  • Very bad solution for me! I messed up my input drivers and lost my keybord...1hour to repare in recovery mode ... arg Jan 16, 2021 at 19:44
  • @user2660966 Sorry to hear that, but in order to help to others, it would be good to include more info on how this happened. I still have the xinput set-prop command in my .xsessionrc, and it's not affecting my keyboard (and it's not clear how it could; the command clearly references the touchpad). Running the command once shouldn't even make a permanent change. Do you have a Dell 7550? Are you sure there weren't other config changes you made? Jan 17, 2021 at 20:15
  • config: Dell precision 7550, ubuntu 18.04 LTS. After installing "xserver-xorg-input-synaptics" and reboot, I could connect to my session and after that the keyboard was unusable (even external usb). I managed to open tty and uninstalled the package, which left me without any input driver at all, and impossible to open tty. I add to reboot in recovery mode, and I could install the libinput package, which both restored my keyboard and mouse + fixed the original problem. I apology if my answer is not fully consistent, I did not really understand what happened. Jan 18, 2021 at 14:48
1

Ran into the same thing under Fedora 32. Found a bit more information that may be useful on Ubuntu, etc. as well.

With the original x11 driver (libinput), I found that xinput set-prop "DELL09C3:00 0488:120A Touchpad" "libinput Click Method Enabled" 0, 1 fixes the left and middle mouse buttons to not require touching the trackpad for them to register clicks BUT right click by using the left button while touching the lower left corner ceases to work and the right button still does not work.

Translating the OP's solution to Fedora: sudo dnf install xorg-x11-drv-synaptics-legacy

To apply the ClickPad config change on boot, I created /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/70-disable-clickpad.conf with

Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "Disable clickpad for Dell Precision 7550 Trackpad"
        MatchProduct "DELL09C3:00 0488:120A Touchpad"
        MatchDriver "synaptics"
        Option "ClickPad" "off"
EndSection

which I expect is also applicable to Ubuntu.

Reboot after the above two changes, and the buttons all work in the normal way.

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