Xfce Forum

SwampRabbit

Member

Registered: 2016-07-14

Posts: 7

Xfce and touch screen (MX Linux 15 and Yoga 2 11) Thread

I am creating this thread to share some Xfce and touch screen usability findings. I am mainly using a Lenovo Yoga 2 11 on MX Linux, but often quickly test on other distros to see differences in implementations.  As time goes on I believe the Yoga 2 11 and Xfce will be make a great team.

My hope is that as time goes on that this thread may help others with Xfce touch screen issues or provide information in general.
I'll be sharing my workflows and touch screen desktop set-up when I have time and am actually not at work.

I have a similar thread, but MX Linux focused here:
http://forum.mepiscommunity.org/viewtop … 85d210e1a2

This isn't really a help/request thread, but I may ask questions, and input/feedback is always welcome. 

Background:
I own two Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 2 11. The Yoga 2 11 is a 11 inch 2-in-1 Laptop and while there are some not so great things about it; in my opinion it has a lot of great things as well.  Xfce was always a delight to use on them, except for auto screen rotation (more on this later)
In the past I ran Debian and Funtoo on them, but have recently moved to using MX Linux 15 (based on Debian Jessie).

On a fresh install of MX 15 with Xfce 4.12 the Yoga is quick and snappy as expected,  Xfce works nicely on it except for three specific issues:

1. Xfce window buttons and title bars do not respond to presses with the touchscreen.
Every other action using the touchscreen seems to work - Whisker and other menus, drag and drop, action buttons, panel items.

2. Selecting an effective and functional onscreen keyboard that only displays when selecting a text entry area in tablet or non-laptop modes.
Still messing with Onboard, Caribou, and Florence, but each has oddities when using Xfce.  Example - sometimes certain Xfce specific text fields do not trigger the onscreen keyboard.

3. Auto-rotation does not work still.
This may be a hard thing to fix, but a manual xrandr rotation script works, so for now it is not a huge deal breaker.

Everything else works as expected, although some tweaks were needed for things such as touch pads and special keys.  One of my Yogas uses an Elan touchpad and the other Synaptic.

Last edited by SwampRabbit (2016-07-14 15:06:31)

SwampRabbit

Member

Registered: 2016-07-14

Posts: 7

Re: Xfce and touch screen (MX Linux 15 and Yoga 2 11) Thread

After a bit of searching and some trial and error, I believe that my first issue is not with Xfce but with Xorg and evdev.  I ran across the following threads in my searches which helped me find a solution:
https://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?id=7451
https://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9327
http://xfce.10915.n7.nabble.com/Re-Xfwm … 42357.html

Testing on Xubuntu, Manjaro, and Febora showed that this issue with the window buttons and title bars did not exist.  Testing on pure Debian Jessie showed the same results as MX 15.  Debian Jessie packages are pretty old and everything online seems to point toward the issue with Xorg and the touch screen being a bug with xorg-core before 1.17 and evdev after 2.7. Other distros are using these or newer by default now so it made sense that they did not have this issue.

My temporary troubleshooting solution was to pull in Xorg packages from Debian Stretch (Testing).  This pulled in a bunch of non-Xorg related stuff, but that's how it is sometimes.

Synaptic commit log:

▼Hidden text

Upgraded the following packages:
bash-completion (1:2.1-4) to 1:2.1-4.3
dbus (1.8.20-0+deb8u1) to 1.10.8-1
ifupdown (0.7.53.1) to 0.8.13
init-system-helpers (1.22) to 1.36
libdbus-1-3 (1.8.20-0+deb8u1) to 1.10.8-1
libdbus-1-3:i386 (1.8.20-0+deb8u1) to 1.10.8-1
libgcrypt20 (1.6.3-2+deb8u1) to 1.7.1-2
libgcrypt20:i386 (1.6.3-2+deb8u1) to 1.7.1-2
libmount1 (2.25.2-6) to 2.28-5
libncurses5 (5.9+20140913-1+b1) to 6.0+20160319-2+b1
libncursesw5 (5.9+20140913-1+b1) to 6.0+20160319-2+b1
libpam-systemd (215-17+deb8u4) to 230-5
libsmartcols1 (2.25.2-6) to 2.28-5
libsystemd0 (215-17+deb8u4) to 230-5
libsystemd0:i386 (215-17+deb8u4) to 230-5
libtinfo5 (5.9+20140913-1+b1) to 6.0+20160319-2+b1
libtinfo5:i386 (5.9+20140913-1+b1) to 6.0+20160319-2+b1
libudev1 (215-17+deb8u4) to 230-5
libudev1:i386 (215-17+deb8u4) to 230-5
mount (2.25.2-6) to 2.28-5
systemd (215-17+deb8u4) to 230-5
sysvinit-utils (2.88dsf-59) to 2.88dsf-59.7
udev (215-17+deb8u4) to 230-5
usb-modeswitch (2.2.0+repack0-2) to 2.4.0+repack0-1
util-linux (2.25.2-6) to 2.28-5
xserver-common (2:1.16.4-1) to 2:1.18.3-1
xserver-xorg (1:7.7+7) to 1:7.7+15
xserver-xorg-core (2:1.16.4-1) to 2:1.18.3-1
xserver-xorg-input-evdev (1:2.9.0-2) to 1:2.10.2-1
xserver-xorg-input-mouse (1:1.9.1-1) to 1:1.9.1-1+b1
xserver-xorg-input-synaptics (1.8.1-1) to 1.8.3-2
xserver-xorg-input-vmmouse (1:13.0.0-1+b3) to 1:13.1.0-1+b1
xserver-xorg-video-fbdev (1:0.4.4-1+b2) to 1:0.4.4-1+b4
xserver-xorg-video-vesa (1:2.3.3-1+b3) to 1:2.3.4-1+b1

Installed the following packages:
libapparmor1 (2.10.95-4)
libfdisk1 (2.28-5)
libjim0.76 (0.76-2)
libseccomp2 (2.3.1-2)

A fresh MX-15, normal updates only, then with the above packages from Debian Stretch seem to correct the Xfce window button and title bar issues with at least the Yoga 2 11 touch screen.
I can assume that this would also correct this issue for those using Debian Jessie or similar distros with dated Xorg packages.