The problems I now have are that my version of xinput is 1.3.0 (Ubuntu Hardy) and I don't have the --set-prop option. Since the GrabEventDevice option in xorg.conf messes up my xserver, I tried removing the synaptics driver completely and I can now get the data in via [hid] and [linuxevent]. The problem is that I no longer have two-fingered scrolling and can't disable the touchpad tap without a driver. I tried to install the Alps driver but had an error as reported here:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1277553#3

any help appreciated

James

Quoth Pedro Lopes, on 20/06/10 11:08:
Yep, it does. When you posted the second reply mentioning xinput I did xinput --help and there it was "the --list command".

Thanks for the help,
Pedro

On Sun, Jun 20, 2010 at 6:22 AM, dmotd <inaudible@simplesuperlativ.es> wrote:
'xinput --list' provides a list of all
supported devices.

Pedro Lopes wrote:
> I've never used hid or linuxmouse. And when I saw your message I gave it a try
> (since I'm also running Ubuntu and have a synaptics touchpad).
>
> I'd like to help but here it seems to be even a bigger mess... it crashes when
> accessing the mouse evice with hid. (probably because of the user space issue
> that dmotd mentioned).
>
> How did you get that device list? Is it a print from hid? (the only things I
> remember is lspci and lsusb)
>
> Best regards to everyone, and big up to Hans-Christoph Steiner for hid and
> linuxmouse,
> Pedro
>
>
>
> On Sat, Jun 19, 2010 at 4:48 PM, dmotd <inaudible@simplesuperlativ.es> wrote:
>
>     also another tip, its possible to configure a
>     device dynamically with 'xinput', you can
>     toggle off with:
>      xinput --set-prop "name of device" "Device Enabled" 0
>     i use this with my wacom tablet to go between
>     xorg device and HID, a full set of properties
>     can be found with:
>      xinput --list-props "name of device"
>     i hope this is of help.
>
>     James Dunn wrote:
>     > I've tried using [hid] and [linuxmouse] and both objects can open the
>     device
>     > but no data is output from either object. [MouseState] and [cursor] both
>     work
>     > but I was hoping to get relative values. Is this a driver issue? I'm
>     using
>     > Ubuntu 8.04 and Pd version 0.42.5-extended-rc3. Here's the console
>     output:
>     >
>     > [hid] 0.7, written by Hans-Christoph Steiner <hans@eds.org>
>     >     compiled on Jun 13 2010 at 11:45:43
>     >
>     > Device 0: 'Macintosh mouse button emulation' on '/dev/input/event0'
>     > Device 1: 'AT Translated Set 2 keyboard' on '/dev/input/event1'
>     > Device 2: 'PC Speaker' on '/dev/input/event2'
>     > Device 3: 'Power Button (FF)' on '/dev/input/event3'
>     > Device 4: 'Sleep Button (CM)' on '/dev/input/event4'
>     > Device 5: 'Lid Switch' on '/dev/input/event5'
>     > Device 6: 'SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad' on '/dev/input/event6'
>     > Device 7: 'Video Bus' on '/dev/input/event7'
>     > Device 8: 'PS/2 Generic Mouse' on '/dev/input/event8'
>     >
>     >
>     > Supported events:
>     >
>     > Detected:
>     > [hid] opened device 6 (/dev/input/event6): SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad
>     > print: open 1
>     > print: device 6
>     >
>     >
>     > Also my xorg.conf has this info:
>     >
>     > Section "InputDevice"
>     >     Identifier  "Synaptics Touchpad"
>     >     Driver      "synaptics"
>     >     Option        "SendCoreEvents" "true"
>     >     Option        "Device" "/dev/psaux"
>     >     Option        "Protocol" "auto-dev"
>     >     Option        "HorizEdgeScroll" "FALSE"
>     >     Option        "VertEdgeScroll" "FALSE"
>     >     Option        "SHMconfig" "on"
>     >     Option        "VertTwoFingerScroll" "TRUE"
>     >     Option        "HorizTwoFingerScroll" "TRUE"
>     > EndSection
>     >
>     >
>     > Any ideas?
>     >
>     > thanks,
>     >
>     > James