Trackpad too sensitive to use in a laptop with Ubuntu 16.04

Question

I have a fresh install on a Dell XPS 13 and I followed these guides:

• My touchpad is too sensitive
• Touchpad issues on Ubuntu 16.10
• What to fix with the fresh factory Ubuntu 16.04 on a Dell XPS 13 9360 (Q&A)

None of them allowed me to use the keyboard and trackpad in a normal fashion. I opted for disabling the touchpad and connecting a usb mouse.

I also found this: Problem installing libinput on 16.04.2

However, the libinput gives me this error:

sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-input-libinput

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 xserver-xorg-input-libinput : Depends: xorg-input-abi-22
                               Depends: xserver-xorg-core (>= 2:1.17.99.902)
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

And the solution listed there, this is to run

install xserver-xorg-input-libinput-hwe-16.04

and that broke my graphic environment and I had to boot in terminal mode and revert the step.

Has anyone here faced the same issue? I don't really wanna go back to Windows since I code a lot, also I've been using OS X for more than 10 years so sorry for any noobness in my question.

Many thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Currently I am on Elementary OS Loki. I had automated the fix of this problem by creating following shell script at /etc/X11/Xsession.d/56touchpadfix :

export `xinput list | grep -i touchpad | awk '{ print $6 }'`
xinput --set-prop "$id" "Synaptics Noise Cancellation" 20 20
xinput --set-prop "$id" "Synaptics Finger" 35 45 250
xinput --set-prop "$id" "Synaptics Scrolling Distance" 180 180
true

You need to tune values for your hardware. Mine work for Sony SVS series laptop. You may also want to try tuning other values listed by command : xinput --list-props "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad"