I am currently using Fedora 43 KDE, and this issue only recently popped up. My trackpad is being exceptionally borky, I can’t accurately use it without any jitters and jumps! I have no idea why this is happening. Like when I try and click a button, the trackpad decides to jump to the button below for who knows why. For reference, when I use a mouse, it tracks fine, and the touchscreen still works. I think my stylus does as well. It’s just something to do with the trackpad. How do I fix my trackpad? Is there a way to “recalibrate” it or something?

The issue does not disappear when I a) restarted sddm and b) restarted my computer

Video link for reference: https://codeberg.org/sbird/video_share/src/branch/main/Screencast_20260203_101257.webm (p.s. if anyone knows a better solution to sharing videos that doesn’t involve making accounts, please let me know! Codeberg isn’t really designed for this…)

edit: It’s way worse now, the trackpad has a mind of its own!!! A link to a screencap (I tried my best to keep it in the rectangular box…): https://codeberg.org/sbird/video_share/src/branch/main/Screencast_20260203_102732.webm

My trackpad has fully gone rogue, it’s moving incredibly erratically and now it’s even clicking and holding when I’m not! Infuriating indeed.

edit 2: I have restarted again and it magically seemed to fix itself! That’s fun. Why the first restart didn’t work I have no idea. Two is bigger than one I guess, and bigger is always better…

  • Lemmyme@lemmy.mlEnglish
    2·
    3 days ago

    Dear Sbird,

    Thank you again for reporting back to me on your experience. I actually ended up testing the Fedora KDE spin just now, but I found that the camera function button didn’t work for me (not so important). The microphone off function button next to it did work, however, but neither of the indicator lights worked. (Again not such a big deal). The Caps Lock key indicator light worked, however.

    I looked into it more and I think that what ASUS had marketed as DC dimming is actually just a software trick, so I don’t think your missing anything with that.

    I tested the IR camera, and the webcam, and both worked. If I ever switch that laptop to Linux fulltime I will follow your advice about the Howdy fork!

    I was actually able to get the numberpad thing on the trackpad to work, and the gesture to open the calculator even worked well. I think the layout for our laptop would be “M433IA.” It was a little buggy for me though. I couldn’t change the brightness level on it, and some other issues like it stop lighting up and needing to restart the service.

    I think the KDE desktop was great that it allows for quarter screened windows easily. I also really like that it has a built in clipboard manager using the windows key plus v, but for some reason copy and paste with the clipboard was a little buggy for me as it wouldn’t work unless I pasted in the same window first and then copied it again somehow.

    My main pain point of KDE is actually that it has the four finger swipe up to get an overview of all apps though, putting my pinky finger down just makes it a more cumbersome process for me compared to using the three-figured gesture which seems to be the standard everywhere else.

    For now I’ll still be going back to Windows. But I imagine I will probably swtich to Linux completely at some point.

    • sbird@sopuli.xyzOPEnglish
      1·
      2 days ago

      I have checked my function buttons again, yeah, the camera on/off one doesn’t work for me. The microphone mute does work, including the orange indicator light.

    • sbird@sopuli.xyzOPEnglish
      1·
      2 days ago

      Four the overviews of all the Latest ndows, what I like to do is use the cornor hotspot feature, so I just fling the mouse to the bottom corner to open the overview of all the windows (it’s in the settings, you can customise what each of the corners do!)

      Nice that you got the numberpad thing working! I might need to try that soon

      I really had to go digging for that Howdy fork, once I get back to my laptop I will let you know the link for reference

      Hopefully you will eventually join the penguin side!

      • Lemmyme@lemmy.ml
        1·
        1 day ago

        Thank you so very much for sharing this specific Howdy fork that worked for you! When I do eventually make the Linux switch I am going to try and get this going, and I’ll share if I figure out anything specific to running Linux on our laptop. Until then I am playing around with Linux on an older device which I don’t really mind having break to see what works for me. I guess the orange indicator light for the microphone kill switch for you worked for you and not for me because perhaps there was some update not reflected on the Fedora download I used to boot from the USB. That gives hope that perhaps the camera kill switch might work in the future too with some kernel update. Anyway, amazing and lucky that our laptop model works so well with Linux as is! I think your use of the corner hotspot feature to get to the hotspot feature is better than the four-finger gesture for KDE. I still find a three-finger gesture is preferable for trackpad navigation (trackpad usability being the original subject or discussion). I found two Gnome extensions called “Copyous” and “Tiling Assistent” which solved the two headaches where KDE seemed better to me. I think that Gnome’s gesture swiping into an overview of everything is even better than Windows because it lets you raise the windows up just a little bit to take a peek at what’s going on. I also really like having the time top and center all the time too.

        • sbird@sopuli.xyzOPEnglish
          1·
          1 day ago

          While I was using GNOME (with Fedora Workstation), the three finger gesture worked for me out of the box and was quite nice indeed. I switched to KDE for better customisability, but if you prefer the padded libadwaita aesthetic of GNOME, it’s also a great choice! They’re both much better than Windows 11 in my opinion…