On Wed, 31 Oct 2018 08:27:45 -0400, Hendrik wrote in message
<20181031122744.clkla3eewf2bimpi@???>:

> On Tue, Oct 30, 2018 at 11:53:03PM +0100, Arnt Karlsen wrote:
> > On Tue, 30 Oct 2018 14:01:03 -0400, Hendrik wrote in message
> > <20181030180103.7xwhnvyqbs6zntgg@???>:
> >
> > > I use Devuan on a Purism laptop. Purism's OS is based on Debian,
> > > and has become contaminated with systemd.
> >
> > ..they blindly accepted it?
> >
> > > So, naturally, I replaced it with Devuan.
> >
> > ..any response on that from puri.sm?
> >
> > > It works very well, except for a problem with the touchpad.
> > >
> > > I can move the mouse pointer around by stroking the touch pad and
> > > I can do the usual left-click by pressing on the touchpad. I can
> > > do two-finger scrolling as well.
> > >
> > > On Purism's OS though I couls get a right-click by pushing down
> > > with two fingers, and a centre-click by pushing down with three
> > > fingers. This does not work on Devuan. To get these clicks I
> > > have resorted to a separate physical USB mouse.
> > >
> > > Is there any way to get this right- and centre-click emulation
> > > working on Devuan? Perhaps some missing driver or
> > > configuration?
> >
> >
> > ..does this recipe work?:
> > https://www.evilcodingmonkey.com/2014/01/23/ubuntu-activate-multi-touch-on-elantech/
>
> I'm ever cautious.
>
> Haven't tried it yet. Am currently trying to figure out what is does.
> It appears to obtain an Ubuntu driver for the touchpad, which a bit
> of net search suggests is from Elantech, and then replaces the
> existing driver with it.
>
> My question is this: How do I undo this if things go wrong?

..dude, I thought dkms was part of the apt/dpkg tool set! ;oD
aptitude install dkms and its recommends etc and _make_ it
part of your apt/dpkg tool set! ;oD

..I see it refuse or fail to build bad drivers all the time, but,
I have _never_ seen it fail me, all I've ever done with bad stuff
rejected by dkms, is remove or purge it with aptitude.


..best way is build a .deb package of that tarball and use dpkg -i
to install it and then restart X, (I only reboot on long power
outages and kernel upgrades) or start a new X session on :1, don't
reboot, that way you can back out of everything killing any bad X
and dpkg -P and reinstall whatever you threw out to try that
tarballed pad driver, they may even have newer versions.


..I don't see any reason to try out tarballs any other way, other
than in virtual machines.


> I'd still presumably be able to boot to a text-only console, but what
> do I do then?

..dunno, AFAICR, I have never played with dkms manually, I have always
done it thru dpkg or aptitude. Kernel modules are easy, to remove one,
e.g. modprobe -vr psmouse, I like "v" for its verbose hints.


..if you avoid rebooting, back up all your config files, build a .deb
package from their tarball and let dpkg/apt handle all the dkms stuff,
you'll find your .deb installed as a "Obsolete and Locally Created
Packages" that you can purge with dpkg or apt.

..whether this restores all your current config files, depends on how
well the distro (our and Debian's) packages has been built, so you
wanna back up your config files, first.

..if you do have to reboot, e.g. on a freeze-up, and you have experience
digging out of neck deep init=/bin/sh boot mud depth the good old unixy
ways, fix whatever is wrong, and telinit 2 to chk it works and back,
until you're done.


> -- hendrik
>
> >
> > ..found it here:
> > https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Elantech+Multitouch+Trackpad&ia=web
> >
> > ..https://duckduckgo.com/?q=PureOS+%22Elantech+Multitouch+Trackpad%22&ia=images
> > finds: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1166442
> >
> > > I'm using ascii with LXQt.

..me too. ;o)

--
..med vennlig hilsen = with Kind Regards from Arnt Karlsen
...with a number of polar bear hunters in his ancestry...
Scenarios always come in sets of three:
best case, worst case, and just in case.