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