HP touchpad works in 20.04, but not 18.04. Must use 18.04, but how to fix?

Bruno Bronosky

3/1/23, 3:19 PM

Disclaimer

I am working on an industrial robotics project that only works with ROS Melodic or Kinetic (ROS1) each of which is tried to a specific Ubuntu release. Please do not suggest using a different version or distro. It's not an option.

Issue

Touchpad on HP ProBook 640 G8 works in 20.04, but not 18.04

I have to get this working on 4 machines total. 2 are ProBook 640 G8. 2 are ProBook 440 G8. I have not tried the ProBook 440 yet.

Info

I don't know what to include here, but I will add any info requested.

Ubuntu 18.04

bruno@bruno-ubuntu1804:~$ lspci -k | grep -A2 USB; echo "###"; lsusb | grep Synaptics
00:0d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Device 9a13 (rev 01)
    Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device 87ed
    Kernel driver in use: xhci_hcd
00:0d.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation Device 9a1b (rev 01)
    Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device 87ed
00:0e.0 RAID bus controller: Intel Corporation Device 9a0b
--
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Device a0ed (rev 20)
    Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device 87ed
    Kernel driver in use: xhci_hcd
###
Bus 003 Device 004: ID 06cb:00f0 Synaptics, Inc.

Ubuntu 20.04

bruno@bruno-ubuntu2004:~$ lspci -k | grep -A2 USB; echo "###"; lsusb | grep Synaptics
00:0d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Device 9a13 (rev 01)
    Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device 87ed
    Kernel driver in use: xhci_hcd
--
00:0d.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation Device 9a1b (rev 01)
    Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device 87ed
    Kernel driver in use: thunderbolt
--
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Device a0ed (rev 20)
    Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device 87ed
    Kernel driver in use: xhci_hcd
###
Bus 003 Device 004: ID 06cb:00f0 Synaptics, Inc.

Please add comments requesting more information (preferably including the CLI commands to get the info).

0 + 0

touchpad

drivers

18.04

matigo

3/1/23, 3:35 PM

It’s interesting that this works for you in 20.04 as [a lot of people report it’s incompatible with Linux](https://linux-hardware.org/?id=usb:06cb-00f0)

Bruno Bronosky

3/1/23, 5:50 PM

@matigo thanks for the feedback. I added specific models details to the post. I'm hoping that those *EliteBook* issues are totally separate from my *ProBook* issues.

Charles Green

3/1/23, 7:21 PM

Can you run 18.04 as a virtual machine inside 20.04?

Bruno Bronosky

3/1/23, 10:29 PM

@CharlesGreen that's an option I might leave open. But, because this is a robotics hardware development workstation, I don't want to introduce possible challenges that virtualization might cause. I'd rather just tell the team, "Sorry, you have to carry a mouse with you until we figure out something better."

Elon Musk

I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

EN: HP touchpad works in 20.04, but not 18.04. Must use 18.04, but how to fix?

TH: ทัชแพด HP ทำงานใน 20.04 แต่ไม่ใช่ 18.04 ต้องใช้ 18.04 แต่จะแก้ไขอย่างไร?

RO: Touchpad-ul HP funcționează în 20.04, dar nu în 18.04. Trebuie să utilizați 18.04, dar cum să remediați?

RU: Тачпад HP работает в 20.04, но не в 18.04. Нужно использовать 18.04, но как исправить?

VI: Bàn di chuột HP hoạt động trong 20.04, nhưng không phải 18.04. Phải sử dụng 18.04, nhưng cách khắc phục?

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