Notebooks Reasons *not* to buy an XPS 13?

Aye, I had a look. No nasty 'WARRANTY VOID' stickers, at least - and I've got a "TELECOM MUNICATIONS TOOLS" (as the side says) set with a T5 bit and spudger, even if they are made of the finest Chinesium.

 

It's here! It's shiny! The wireless blows goats!

Upgraded to the latest 4.10 kernel (Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS, up from the 4.4-based 16.04 it came with), no joy. It'll connect on 5GHz but not transmit or receive anything; works fine on 2.4GHz, but that's cold comfort. Guess I'll be getting the screwdriver out at some point!

EDIT: Swapped out for an Intel 8265, and I can connect via 5GHz at last! The signal strength in the office ain't the best, though, so it's gracefully falling back to 2.4GHz - which is fine, because I'm getting 56Mb/s out of my ~60Mb/s VDSL line. In other words: close enough!

The only confusing point: the Broadcom (Killer) Wi-Fi card had MAIN marked as white and AUX marked as black, with the white cable going into MAIN and the black cable going into AUX. The 8265, by contrast, was maked as black for MAIN and white for AUX. I put the cables back as per their original connection - white to MAIN and black to AUX - but it's harshing my calm knowing that the cables don't match the colour coding now...

 

I've knocked up a quick little script which works perfectly for me: the first two lines enable palm detection (so if you swipe something bigger than a finger, fnar-fnar, it won't move the cursor) while the last line disables the touchpad altogether while typing for both motion and clicking then enables it again after a short delay.

I can confirm it's absolutely working a treat here: I've got my cursor hovering over another window and keep tapping the touchpad with my thumb as I'm typing and nowt's happening. The only way I can get something to happen is by pressing the touchpad hard enough to activate the physical click - which appears to still be active. I'm not likely to do that while typing, though, so I'm happy.

The script is here. Save it, make it executable, stick it in your startup applications, job should be a good 'un.

Just be aware that if you're not on the exact same model of XPS as me you may need to change the string it searches for in order to find the touchpad. Hit the terminal and type xinput list to get something a bit like this:

Code:

blacklaw@xerxes:~/bash-scripts$ xinput list
⎡ Virtual core pointer                       id=2   [master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer                 id=4   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ DLL075B:01 06CB:76AF Touchpad               id=10   [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)]
    ↳ Sleep Button                               id=9   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Intel Virtual Button driver                 id=11   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Intel HID events                           id=12   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard               id=13   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Dell WMI hotkeys                           id=15   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Integrated_Webcam_HD                       id=16   [slave  keyboard (3)]

Mine's called 'DLL75B:01 06CB:76AF Touchpad', so 'DLL75B' is plenty to uniquely identify it. If yours is called something else - I've seen talk of XPSes where it's called 'Dell Somethingorother Touchpad' or 'Synaptics Somethingorother' - then change 'DLL75B' in the two lines of the script accordingly.

Hope it works for you - it certainly has for me!

 

Good guy Gareth helping out the community.

 

I'd already written it to fix it for me - might as well share the love!

 

Well, this is annoying: I rebooted to install a new graphics firmware, and now the trackpad is active while I'm typing despite running syndaemon with the correct invocation. Bumholes.

So, what's changed, I wonder?

EDIT: Interesting: if I cold-boot, disable-touch-while-type doesn't work; if I suspend then resume, it does. That'd be a fine workaround, *but* now the thing's decided to disable all the neat-o features it should have - like two-finger scrolling and tap-to-click. Weeeeeeeeeird.

EDIT EDIT: Aha! It's because, for some reason, from a cold boot the touchpad shows up as both an I²C device and a PS/2 device, which is confusing the heck out of syndaemon.

Code:

blacklaw@xerxes:~$ xinput -list
⎡ Virtual core pointer                       id=2   [master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer                 id=4   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ DLL075B:01 06CB:76AF Touchpad               id=10   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad                 id=14   [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)]
    ↳ Sleep Button                               id=9   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Intel Virtual Button driver                 id=11   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Intel HID events                           id=12   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard               id=13   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Dell WMI hotkeys                           id=15   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Integrated_Webcam_HD                       id=16   [slave  keyboard (3)]

So, change of plan: instead of putting the script in Startup Applications, I'm going to just run it manually after each cold boot - but only after suspending and resuming the machine first. Yes, that's stupid. Welcome to technology!

EDIT EDIT EDIT: Sure enough, a cold boot followed by a suspend gives me this:

Code:

blacklaw@xerxes:~$ xinput -list
⎡ Virtual core pointer                       id=2   [master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer                 id=4   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ DLL075B:01 06CB:76AF Touchpad               id=10   [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)]
    ↳ Sleep Button                               id=9   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Intel Virtual Button driver                 id=11   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Intel HID events                           id=12   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard               id=13   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Dell WMI hotkeys                           id=15   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Integrated_Webcam_HD                       id=16   [slave  keyboard (3)]

A quick run of my script now, and not before, and the trackpad is correctly disabled while typing and doesn't lose any of its shiny features. An annoyance, but hey - I'm on Linux, how often do I need to reboot anyway?!

EDIT EDIT EDIT EDIT: So... there's a slightly unforeseen side-effect to disabling the touchpad while you type: you have to leave half a second between pressing a key and moving the cursor while playing a game. It doesn't differentiate. Basically makes 'em unplayable.

I tried killing syndaemon while running the game, but that just made the trackpad stop working altogether. I guess a workaround is to reboot before you run a game, but that's not exactly a great solution.

So, you get a choice: no accidental clicking while typing but no gaming either, or gaming and putting up with the occasional accidental click.

 

I'll tell you what, Dell's done an absolutely terrible job of optimising Linux on these things. Rough summary of what I've done off the top of my head:

* Replace the Wi-Fi card
* Upgraded from 16.04 to 16.04.3 (which bumps you to Linux 4.10.x)
* Fixed the touchpad
* Installed new video firmware (which enables hardware video acceleration in Firefox, for a start)
* Enabled GPU-accelerated OpenCL
* Enabled hibernation (there's plenty of room in the swap partition - it's 35GB, for some reason!)
* Tweaked the power settings to boost battery life

It's now, unsurprisingly, a fair whack faster and considerably more usable than it was out-the-box. None of those were big jobs, and I'd argue that they're all things Dell should have done before it ever left the factory.

 

Okay, now we're cooking with flamin' gas!

This new version of the script is a lot smarter than the old one:

Code:

#!/bin/bash
# Script to activate palm detection on the Dell XPS 13.

if `xinput -list | grep -q SynPS`; then
   echo ERROR: SynPS/2 device found.
   echo Suspend and resume your laptop, then run this script again.
   exit 1
fi

echo Killing currently-running syndaemon...
killall syndaemon > /dev/null 2>&1

echo Enabling palm detection...
xinput set-prop `xinput list | grep DLL075B | cut -d= -f2 | cut -f1` "Synaptics Palm Dimensions" 5, 5
xinput set-prop `xinput list | grep DLL075B | cut -d= -f2 | cut -f1` "Synaptics Palm Detection" 1
echo Enabling three-finger-tap for middle click...
synclient TapButton3=2

if [ "$1" == "--type-disable" ] || [ "$1" == "-td" ]; then
   echo Trackpad disabled while typing.
   syndaemon -i 0.2 -K -R -d
   synclient TouchpadOff=0
else
   echo Trackpad enabled while typing.
   synclient TouchpadOff=0
fi

echo Done!
exit 0

It now has a -td (or --type-disable) switch. When run with said switch, the touchpad is disabled while typing based on a shortened 0.2-second delay ('cos I was finding the 0.5 second delay a bit annoying.) Without said switch, the script only enables palm detection and leaves the touchpad active while typing - meaning you can play games again. Yay!

Last little bit of cleverness is the synclient TouchpadOff=0 command: turns out that sometimes when you're running syndaemon in daemon mode and kill it to re-enable the touchpad while typing (for gaming, in other words), it would default to the touchpad being off - hence why the touchpad died on me when I tried to disable syndaemon to play my game. That line just turns it back on again (or, technically, turns it being off off - 'cos that's a sensible way to think of it, synclient developers...)

EDIT: Oh, and as an added bonus the script will now gracefully exit if it finds the SynPS/2 device, telling you to suspend and resume before trying again. *And* it enables three-finger middle-click, which is for some reason disabled by default.

So:

Code:

blacklaw@xerxes:~$./xps13-palm-detect.sh
Killing currently-running syndaemon...
Enabling palm detection...
Enabling three-finger-tap for middle click...
Trackpad enabled while typing.
Done!
blacklaw@xerxes:~$ <insert playing a game here>
blacklaw@xerxes:~$./xps13-palm-detect.sh -td
Killing currently-running syndaemon...
Enabling palm detection...
Enabling three-finger-tap for middle click...
Trackpad disabled while typing.
Done!
blacklaw@xerxes:~$ <insert doing typing work here>

Ta-da! Give that a try, @theshadow2001 - see if it fixes yer problem.

EDIT EDIT: I could go a step further and turn the script into a toggle: if disabled-while-typing is on turn it off, and if disabled-while-typing is off turn it on. That way you could just stick it in the Menu and click it to toggle between Work Mode and Game Mode. But first, paid work beckons...

 

Don't kill me for this but how is it on windows?

 

No idea. Well, other than the knee-jerk response of "crap 'cos it's Windows," obviously!

 

Was refereed to as "bindows" for a few months here. They keep trying to convert us to linux.

 

I've tried Windows - my first version was Windows 3.1. I've tried macOS - I had a MacBook Air for four years. Still, I come back to Linux as the only OS that doesn't drive me completely bleedin' insane.

Well, unless going back to Amiga Workbench is an option.

 

Well, yes. Which reminds me, I haven't played with RISC OS on a Raspberry Pi in years. I should fix that.

 

Job's a good 'un: a script which flicks betwix Work Mode (touchpad disabled while typing) and Game Mode (touchpad enabled while typing.) One-click, baby, one click!