Problem with Touchpad under Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat

Recently my Synaptics TouchPad stopped working in Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat. It works fine in Windows 7 and the TouchPad works even in Ubuntu on login screen prior to logging in.

If I use the "disable TouchPad" button Ubuntu shows that the Touchpad is now on, if I press it again, it shows the TouchPad is off. So when the hardware believes the TouchPad is live, Ubuntu/X "closes its ears" as the TouchPad is supposed to be off, and when the hardware believes the TouchPad is off, Ubuntu is listening, but the TouchPad is silent. Catch 22!

I have been googling a bit, but nothing interesting comes up. Checking Launchpad, nothing 10.10 specific comes up and by skimming the rest I have found nothing. I will dive deeper into Launchpad though.

Does anybody have any solutions?

git

So I finally started looking into git as a version control system. I have yet to do any serious use of it, but I have run into a few snags.

I want to use git for version control of several private projects. Currently I have both website and Android development projects running and I would also like to start a few C projects (for Linux). And I would like the repositories to be placed in a central location (within my filetree) so that it can be Sync'ed via Ubuntu One.

So what is the road ahead? Does anybody have any pointers about multiple projects/repositories for an absolute newbie in git? Please share in the comments!

New Computer - Installing Ubuntu

After a few days of playing with Windows 7 on my new Aspire 5738ZF (see ) I finally had some time to install Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat). As this laptop is equipped with a 64-bit processor (Pentium T4500) and 4 GB of memory, I decided to install the 64-bit Desktop Edition with the Dual Boot option.

Installation went fine and without hitches, everything seems to have been recognised automatically. I decided to install the proprietary Radeon Driver in order to get the most out of my graphics card. I do not have any programs needing it in the moment, but perhaps later running a few games ...

I like the Gnome Desktop provided with the vanilla Ubuntu but I usually rearrange the top panel, replacing the custom Ubuntu menu bar with the standard Gnome Main menu, adding the System Monitor and Desktop Switcher applets and removing the lower panel. Thus far I have only added the System Monitor.

As I let the installer decide on the partitioning while reserving just under 100 GB to Ubuntu, it decided upon a 4 GB swap partition and the rest in one huge root partition. I usually like to have my /home on a seperate partition, so that I may upgrade or re-install the root without loosing my data. At some point in the future, I need to resize the root partition and move /home to a new partition.

I like the Medibuntu repositories and thus added them to my sources. I installed Skype 2.1 from there as well as the restricted DVD-files to enable playback of encrypted DVDs (read; all commercial DVDs)

As I am going to use this computer for Software Development, including Android applications I have installed Eclipse Galileo from the standard repositories. No problems there either. Now I have to install git to store my projects. And as I am also going to do some Web Development, I need to install the LAMP stack.

I plan to do a post about installing git at some point. I have yet to try out git so it will be a "beginners experience with git" both setting up a git server (on this local machine) and using git.

Another post planned is about Ubuntu One and maybe a post specifically about UbuntuOne Mobile and Ubuntu One Music Store.