How can I switch between workspaces with 3 fingers touchpad in Ubuntu 14.04?

Question

I am looking for a way to change between workspaces with my touchpad, I have found other questions like this, and I have tried theis solutions, but EasyStroke and Touchegg do not work.

I have an ASUS laptop and when running Windows my gesture monitor recongnize 3 and even 4 fingers. In Ubuntu when I touch with 4 fingers launcher is shown (like if I press Super key), but I can not activate 3 fingers swipe to change workspace.

I added this to touchegg config file:

<gesture type="DRAG" fingers="3" direction="RIGHT">
     <action type="SEND_KEYS">Control+Alt+Left</action>
</gesture>

Solution

Your touchpad is probably a Focaltech or an Elantech. They can report up to 5-finger actions.

The kernel module reports only positions of the fingers. All kinds of "actions" like "swipes", "scrolls", "taps", etc. are detected and interpreted by user space drivers.

In Ubuntu xserver-xorg-input-synaptics is used. It can detect only 2-finger swipes, vertical and horizontal.

There is no code that detects 3-finger swipes. The only way to add this feature is to code it into the user space driver.

There is another user space driver libinput, that will be used in future releases of Ubuntu and is currently used in some other Linux distributions, e.g. Fedora.

It can be installed to Ubuntu this way. But the problem is that it can be installed only through xserver-xorg. That is way it does not increase overall functionality, if I got the method right.

But it is worth testing.

In some other desktop environments like Wayland it may be possible.

Comments

[Pilot6]

Probably the xorg-synaptics does not create events for these kind of drags.

[Gocht]

What would be the solution? One reason to love Ubuntu is than usually I don't think about 'IF' I can do something, I usually think about in 'HOW' to do something because, I've been able to customize Ubuntu to fit me always.

[Gocht]

But if my touchpad recognize 4 finger why can not config 3? Or is this a problem with drag action?

[Pilot6]

Is your touchpad a Focaltech? What does xinput show?

[Gocht]

So, install libinput is not a solution?

[Pilot6]

I read some more code. xserver can use these events with libinput.

[Gocht]

Weel I think I need to read more about.

[Pilot6]

Try to install libinput and test. But I am not quite sure that touchagg supports it well. But with a custom script it should work.

[Gocht]

libinput will limit some other Ubuntu's functions?

[Pilot6]

No, it will not. The only thing it will not use palm detection on Focaltech touchpads, because they do not report pressure. But it is rarely used and you have an Elantech.

[Gocht]

Thanks for this, I have Elantech so is a good choice?

[Pilot6]

It is not bad with Focaltech either. I am just the commiter of the palm detection kernel patch for Focaltech and I did not like that it was not used there :-) But it works well.

[Gocht]

Then, the logic question: Why Ubuntu does not come with libinput by default?

[Pilot6]

Because libinput is new and was released this summer. In Ubuntu 15.10 libinput is included in the official repos and is optional.

[Pilot6]

@Gocht Please report if you could setup the 3-finger swipe.

[Gocht]

I have been readong a little, what about xSwipe? Does it works on Ubuntu 14.04? Is it an option?

[Pilot6]

I think xSwipe will work.

[Gocht]

I have successfully installed xSwipe on Ubuntu 14.04 but I can't figure how to configure it to achieve the actions I need, do you have some docs about this?

[Pilot6]

I think libinput+touchegg should work.