[CentOS] Touchpad doesn't work with C6, kernel-related...

[Akemi Yagi]

On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 7:04 AM, Marko Vojinovic <vvmarko at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi folks! :-)
>
> I have a Fujitsu Lifebook U series laptop running updated CentOS 6.4
> (64bit), and the touchpad doesn't work. It's a new laptop, the touchpad
> works correctly in Fedora 18 Live (given the kernel parameters below),
> no hardware problems.
>
> I searched the web all around, and it's a known issue for several
> laptop models. The only solution, quoted everywhere, it is to append the
>
>   i8042.notimeout i8042.nomux
>
> to the kernel parameters. The problem is that the latest CentOS6 kernel
> (2.6.32-358.2.1.el6.x86_64) doesn't appear to recognize these. Or it
> otherwise ignores them. I did append the parameters, but (unlike in
> Fedora) the touchpad is still dead.
>
> This laptop is to be used by a noob user who needs a LTS distro and is
> already accustomed to CentOS, so a more modern distro like Fedora or
> Ubuntu is not an option.
>
> What can be done about this? Would a CentOSplus kernel work? It is
> somehow too lousy to tell the client "The touchpad of your brand-new
> laptop doesn't work because CentOS is too old, use an USB mouse
> instead".
>
> Any advice appreciated.
>
> TIA, :-)
> Marko

Just did a quick check. The current CentOS kernel (centosplus kernel
as well) seems to have code for i8042.nomux but not i8042.notimeout in
linux/drivers/input/serio/i8042.c .

You might want to give ELRepo's kernel-ml a try:

http://elrepo.org/tiki/kernel-ml

It is the latest mainline kernel that runs on CentOS.

Akemi