XPS 17 9730 touchpad problem workaround on Ubuntu 22.04

README.md

XPS 17 9730 touchpad problem workaround on Ubuntu 22.04

This is a follow up for my Reddit post. Note that this is relevant for the classic X server (not Xwayland, which doesn't have this problem). If you have an NVIDIA GPU on your laptop, This is probably for you: Ubuntu configures the system with the non-Wayland, classic X server when an NVIDIA GPU is used.

The inspiration is from this article from the DELL site. Although the approach is outdated for recent Ubuntu, the basic premise is the same, that is, to eliminate duplicated touchpad / mouse input from X server configuration.

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1. Run xinput list to confirm there is two mouse/touchpad devices for the touchpad:

⎡ Virtual core pointer                          id=2    [master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer                id=4    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ ELAN2097:00 04F3:2A15                     id=12   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ VEN_04F3:00 04F3:32AA Mouse               id=13   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ VEN_04F3:00 04F3:32AA Touchpad            id=14   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ PS/2 Generic Mouse                        id=20   [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)]
    ↳ Integrated_Webcam_HD: Integrate           id=10   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Integrated_Webcam_HD: Integrate           id=11   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Intel HID events                          id=15   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Intel HID 5 button array                  id=16   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Dell Privacy Driver                       id=17   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Dell WMI hotkeys                          id=18   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard              id=19   [slave  keyboard (3)]

You have both VEN_04F3:00 04F3:32AA Touchpad and PS/2 Generic Mouse, which can cause a conflit.

Put following config at the end of /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/40-libinput.conf

# See https://gist.github.com/omo/4839c896019980d4f9d49aeff3c25929
Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "Fallback Mouse"
        MatchProduct "PS/2 Generic Mouse"
        MatchIsPointer "true"
        MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
        Option "Ignore" "true" 
EndSection

Then restart the X server (by logging-out-and-in).

3. Run xinput list again to confirm that the PS/2 Mouse entry is gone.

It should look like this:

⎡ Virtual core pointer                          id=2    [master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer                id=4    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ VEN_04F3:00 04F3:32AA Touchpad            id=14   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ ELAN2097:00 04F3:2A15                     id=12   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ VEN_04F3:00 04F3:32AA Mouse               id=13   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                         id=3    [master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard               id=5    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Integrated_Webcam_HD: Integrate           id=10   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Intel HID events                          id=15   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Integrated_Webcam_HD: Integrate           id=11   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                              id=8    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard              id=19   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Sleep Button                              id=9    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Dell Privacy Driver                       id=17   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Dell WMI hotkeys                          id=18   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Video Bus                                 id=7    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Video Bus                                 id=6    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Intel HID 5 button array                  id=16   [slave  keyboard (3)]

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Hope this helps!

I ran into this problem on Debian Wayland, thank you, you helped me fix it, though I had to work it a bit differently, so here is what I did if you want to add it to your post.
On Debian Wayland, if you run lsmod | grep psmouse, it will show that the PS/2 Generic Mouse kernel, your culprit, is running. To fix that, a blacklist is needed. sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-psmouse.conf is what I did, dunno if there is a better way but it worked fine with me. In there, paste blacklist psmouse and save, then sudo update-initramfs -u and sudo reboot.
Thanks!

After years of pain, unfortunately the above solution did not work for me, I FINALLY SOLVED by disabling PSR.
Details here

As of now, neither has actually worked, mine or yours, but I also run into touchpad problems on Windows so I believe my touchpad may be faulty in hardware or firmware, not drivers. Thanks though