Dell XPS 13 (9350) on Ubuntu 16.04 - touchpad stops working or works erratically

Question

I have pretty much the same problem as in Dell XPS 13 9350 with Ubuntu 15.10 - Touchpad freezing, jumping - but on Ubuntu 16.04.

My touchpad stops working randomly, or can work somewhat only if I click and drag with it. Sometimes it starts working if I do a two-finger scroll, but this doesn't always work.

I have installed a mainline kernel (version 4.4.13-040413-generic) to fix an issue related to resuming after suspend. However, the present touchpad issue was present on a vanilla 16.04 install too.

Any help is appreciated. How would I even begin debugging this? (I am not shy to use the terminal or modify my system, as long as I know how to bring it back to a working version, in case the experiment fails).

Solution

I had the same problem when I put Ubuntu 16.04 on my Dell XPS13 (9350). For me the problem was largely resolved by installing libinput:

sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-input-libinput

The only issue I have now is that the mouse pointer freezes once in a while. But this is very rare and I can always unfreeze it with a left click. Overall I'm very pleased with the improvement libinput has made to the performance of the touchpad.

You can read more about this solution at https://askubuntu.com/a/678122

J-Linux

Comments

[Admin]

what did you learn, DenverCoder9?

[donatello]

I tried this out for a week, but it doesnt seem to be helping. My touchpad still freezes but it's able to start working with a few clicks or by attaching a usb mouse. But there are instances where it doesnt fix itself.