Alps touchpad driver for X-input (synaptics alternative)

[Peter Hutterer]

On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 05:50:20PM +0200, Yotam Medini wrote:
> Hello Alps-TouchPad users  and  X11-input drivers gurus
> 
> As a user of an ancient UMAX-ActionBook 530T,
> I found that the synaptics touchpad driver is probably more suitable
> for other hardware types.

why?
I'd be really interested what synaptics doesn't do well enough (and so badly
that it warrants another driver).

> For 'Alps' type touchpad as I happen to have, I wrote a simpler driver.
> Its code is much inspired by that of the synaptics.
> A tarball of its source is available via a link from
>  http://www.medini.org/software/alps/alps.html

// Since xf86 headers do not respect C++ we:
#define bool     _bOol
#define class    _klAss
#define new      _nEw
#define private  priv8
#define public   publik

ouch.

> Should XOrg/FreeDesktop wish to put it in its (git)-repository,
> I will be happy to keep maintaining it.
> 
> Please feel free to try and send comments.

I've only glanced over the code and I haven't really seen any reason why
to have a new driver (other than that it's written in C++ instead of C).
this driver seems to be (as you said) a severly cut down version of
synaptics.

I think it's better though if you specify what the actual problems are so we
can fix them. Another driver means more time spent on maintainership, bug
triaging, user confusion, bug duplication, etc.

Cheers,
  Peter