Issues with touchpad on Ubuntu with a latop Dell G15

Question

On Ubuntu 24.10 (so with Waland I believe), with a Dell G15, the touchpad is not working properly.

The motion part works well, as well as the scrolling with the edge most of the time, although, it is sometimes "working" in the middle of the touchpad.

However, clicking does not work most of the time, either using finger or corner. Sometimes, the system behaves as if there is a continuous click. Right click works sometimes with two fingers, but not with corner. Scrolling with two fingers does not work.

$ sudo libinput list-devices
[sudo] password for begum: 
Device:           Video Bus
Kernel:           /dev/input/event11
Group:            1
Seat:             seat0, default
Capabilities:     keyboard 
Tap-to-click:     n/a
Tap-and-drag:     n/a
Tap drag lock:    n/a
Left-handed:      n/a
Nat.scrolling:    n/a
Middle emulation: n/a
Calibration:      n/a
Scroll methods:   none
Click methods:    none
Disable-w-typing: n/a
Disable-w-trackpointing: n/a
Accel profiles:   n/a
Rotation:         0.0
Device:           Video Bus
Kernel:           /dev/input/event10
Group:            1
Seat:             seat0, default
Capabilities:     keyboard 
Tap-to-click:     n/a
Tap-and-drag:     n/a
Tap drag lock:    n/a
Left-handed:      n/a
Nat.scrolling:    n/a
Middle emulation: n/a
Calibration:      n/a
Scroll methods:   none
Click methods:    none
Disable-w-typing: n/a
Disable-w-trackpointing: n/a
Accel profiles:   n/a
Rotation:         0.0
Device:           Power Button
Kernel:           /dev/input/event1
Group:            2
Seat:             seat0, default
Capabilities:     keyboard 
Tap-to-click:     n/a
Tap-and-drag:     n/a
Tap drag lock:    n/a
Left-handed:      n/a
Nat.scrolling:    n/a
Middle emulation: n/a
Calibration:      n/a
Scroll methods:   none
Click methods:    none
Disable-w-typing: n/a
Disable-w-trackpointing: n/a
Accel profiles:   n/a
Rotation:         0.0
Device:           Lid Switch
Kernel:           /dev/input/event0
Group:            3
Seat:             seat0, default
Capabilities:     switch
Tap-to-click:     n/a
Tap-and-drag:     n/a
Tap drag lock:    n/a
Left-handed:      n/a
Nat.scrolling:    n/a
Middle emulation: n/a
Calibration:      n/a
Scroll methods:   none
Click methods:    none
Disable-w-typing: n/a
Disable-w-trackpointing: n/a
Accel profiles:   n/a
Rotation:         0.0
Device:           VEN_04F3:00 04F3:32B4 Mouse
Kernel:           /dev/input/event3
Group:            4
Seat:             seat0, default
Capabilities:     pointer 
Tap-to-click:     n/a
Tap-and-drag:     n/a
Tap drag lock:    n/a
Left-handed:      disabled
Nat.scrolling:    disabled
Middle emulation: n/a
Calibration:      n/a
Scroll methods:   button
Click methods:    none
Disable-w-typing: n/a
Disable-w-trackpointing: n/a
Accel profiles:   flat adaptive custom
Rotation:         n/a
Device:           VEN_04F3:00 04F3:32B4 Touchpad
Kernel:           /dev/input/event4
Group:            4
Seat:             seat0, default
Size:             104x60mm
Capabilities:     pointer gesture
Tap-to-click:     disabled
Tap-and-drag:     enabled
Tap drag lock:    disabled
Left-handed:      disabled
Nat.scrolling:    disabled
Middle emulation: disabled
Calibration:      n/a
Scroll methods:   two-finger edge 
Click methods:    button-areas clickfinger 
Disable-w-typing: enabled
Disable-w-trackpointing: enabled
Accel profiles:   flat *adaptive custom
Rotation:         n/a
Device:           Intel HID events
Kernel:           /dev/input/event6
Group:            5
Seat:             seat0, default
Capabilities:     keyboard 
Tap-to-click:     n/a
Tap-and-drag:     n/a
Tap drag lock:    n/a
Left-handed:      n/a
Nat.scrolling:    n/a
Middle emulation: n/a
Calibration:      n/a
Scroll methods:   none
Click methods:    none
Disable-w-typing: n/a
Disable-w-trackpointing: n/a
Accel profiles:   n/a
Rotation:         0.0
Device:           Intel HID 5 button array
Kernel:           /dev/input/event7
Group:            6
Seat:             seat0, default
Capabilities:     keyboard 
Tap-to-click:     n/a
Tap-and-drag:     n/a
Tap drag lock:    n/a
Left-handed:      n/a
Nat.scrolling:    n/a
Middle emulation: n/a
Calibration:      n/a
Scroll methods:   none
Click methods:    none
Disable-w-typing: n/a
Disable-w-trackpointing: n/a
Accel profiles:   n/a
Rotation:         0.0
Device:           Dell Privacy Driver
Kernel:           /dev/input/event8
Group:            7
Seat:             seat0, default
Capabilities:     keyboard 
Tap-to-click:     n/a
Tap-and-drag:     n/a
Tap drag lock:    n/a
Left-handed:      n/a
Nat.scrolling:    n/a
Middle emulation: n/a
Calibration:      n/a
Scroll methods:   none
Click methods:    none
Disable-w-typing: n/a
Disable-w-trackpointing: n/a
Accel profiles:   n/a
Rotation:         0.0
Device:           Dell WMI hotkeys
Kernel:           /dev/input/event9
Group:            8
Seat:             seat0, default
Capabilities:     keyboard 
Tap-to-click:     n/a
Tap-and-drag:     n/a
Tap drag lock:    n/a
Left-handed:      n/a
Nat.scrolling:    n/a
Middle emulation: n/a
Calibration:      n/a
Scroll methods:   none
Click methods:    none
Disable-w-typing: n/a
Disable-w-trackpointing: n/a
Accel profiles:   n/a
Rotation:         0.0
Device:           AT Translated Set 2 keyboard
Kernel:           /dev/input/event2
Group:            9
Seat:             seat0, default
Capabilities:     keyboard 
Tap-to-click:     n/a
Tap-and-drag:     n/a
Tap drag lock:    n/a
Left-handed:      n/a
Nat.scrolling:    n/a
Middle emulation: n/a
Calibration:      n/a
Scroll methods:   none
Click methods:    none
Disable-w-typing: n/a
Disable-w-trackpointing: n/a
Accel profiles:   n/a
Rotation:         0.0
Device:           PS/2 Generic Mouse
Kernel:           /dev/input/event5
Group:            10
Seat:             seat0, default
Capabilities:     pointer 
Tap-to-click:     n/a
Tap-and-drag:     n/a
Tap drag lock:    n/a
Left-handed:      disabled
Nat.scrolling:    disabled
Middle emulation: disabled
Calibration:      n/a
Scroll methods:   button
Click methods:    none
Disable-w-typing: n/a
Disable-w-trackpointing: n/a
Accel profiles:   flat adaptive custom
Rotation:         0.0

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 09 '25 at 21:52

Sounds like a broken touchpad, but it may be fixable.

I'll start with a bit of theory. Touchpads are manufactured poorly from time to time.

For this reason libinput has special "quirks" system which is updated every time somebody notices another broken model. Just to give you a number: on my system a command grep MatchUdevType=touchpad /usr/share/libinput/*.quirks | wc -l gives number 72, that is at least 72 broken touchpads known as of libinput 1.27.1

With that said, first you need to check what libinput version you have. If it's older than the last release, you might want to check if the problem was fixed already. For that you can follow this answer that describes how to get latest libinput on your Ubuntu. Don't forget to reboot.

Afterwards, if the latest version still has problem, please follow these instructions on reporting the bug. Hopefully, your problem is something that can be worked around in software.

Issues with touchpad on Ubuntu with a latop Dell G15

1 Answers1