touchpad problems with xfree 4.2.1

[xiphux]

I've been having some strange problems with xfree 4.2.1. I have a dell inspiron 8100, and with previous versions of X, i had it set up so both my touchpad and my usb mouse worked. when i upgraded to 4.2.1 (r2, i believe) my touchpad stopped working. I looked at the logfile, and this is the only line i saw out of the ordinary:

(EE) Mouse1: cannot determine the mouse protocol

(Mouse1 is the touchpad)

so i explicitly set the protocol to PS/2 in my XF86Config. when i restarted the server, it still didn't work. in fact, the logfile insists that the mouse protocol is still set to "Auto," even though it's set as PS/2 right there in the file - curious. running 'startx -- -logverbose 8' doesn't give me any more information.

i tried switching from the generic mouse driver to the actual synaptics driver for my touchpad. no luck. i did the 'cat /dev/mouse' test, and it responds fine. so then i rolled back to 4.2.0-r12 - and the touchpad works perfectly again. I stuck with using the older xfree, but now more and more package upgrades in portage are requiring me to upgrade to the newest xfree.

has anyone had this problem before with 4.2.1? any help would be appreciated, because i'm pretty frustrated about it as it is...

and even though i doubt the possibility, i apologize if i'm doing something really dumb - it's five in the morning here.



here's my XF86Config:

Section "Module"
Load "dbe"
SubSection "extmod"
Option "omit xfree86-dga" # don't initialise the DGA extension
EndSubSection
Load "type1"
Load "freetype"
Load "glx"
Load"synaptics"
EndSection

Section "Files"
RgbPath"/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/truetype"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/local/"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/artwiz/"
ModulePath "/usr/X11R6/lib/modules"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
# Option "NoTrapSignals"
# Option "DontZap"
# Option "Dont Zoom"
# Option "DisableVidModeExtension"
# Option "AllowNonLocalXvidtune"
# Option "DisableModInDev"
# Option "AllowNonLocalModInDev"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier"Keyboard1"
Driver"Keyboard"
Option "AutoRepeat" "500 30"
Option "XkbRules""xfree86"
Option "XkbModel""pc101"
Option "XkbLayout""dvorak"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier"touchpad"
Driver"synaptics"
Option "Protocol""PS/2"
Option "Device""/dev/mouse"
Option "Edges""1900 5400 1800 3900"
Option "Finger""25 30"
Option "MaxTapTime""20"
Option "MaxTapMove""220"
Option "VertScrollDelta""100"
Option "MinSpeed""0.02"
Option "MaxSpeed""0.18"
Option "AccelFactor""0.0010"
Option "Emulate3Buttons"
Option "Emulate3Timeout""50"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier"usbmouse"
Driver"mouse"
Option "Protocol""IMPS/2"
Option "Device""/dev/input/mice"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "My Monitor"
HorizSync 30-100
VertRefresh 60
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "My Video Card"
Driver "nvidia"
# unsupported card
#VideoRam 65536
# Insert Clocks lines here if appropriate
Option "NoLogo" "1"
Option "CursorShadow""true"
Option "CursorShadowAlpha""60"
Option "CursorShadowXOffset""3"
Option "CursorShadowYOffset""2"
Option "DigitalVibrance""3"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen 1"
Device "My Video Card"
Monitor "My Monitor"
DefaultDepth 24

Subsection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1600x1200" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
ViewPort 0 0
EndSubsection
Subsection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1600x1200" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
ViewPort 0 0
EndSubsection
Subsection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1600x1200" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
ViewPort 0 0
EndSubsection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Simple Layout"
Screen "Screen 1"
InputDevice "touchpad" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "usbmouse" "SendCoreEvents"
InputDevice "Keyboard1" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection