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>

Probably the xorg-synaptics does not create events for these kind of drags. — Pilot6, Oct 12 '15 at 20:32
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, Oct 12 '15 at 20:37
It is possible to patch the user space driver and add this feature. But is is not just a config. — Pilot6, Oct 12 '15 at 20:38
But if my touchpad recognize 4 finger why can not config 3? Or is this a problem with drag action? — Gocht, Oct 12 '15 at 20:40
For Virtual core pointer: ETPS/2 Elantech Touchpad and Virtual core XTEST pointer — Gocht, Oct 12 '15 at 20:46

Pilot6 · Accepted Answer · 2017-07-28T23:35:24.540

2

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.

edited Jul 28 '17 at 23:35

answered Oct 12 '15 at 20:50

Pilot6

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So, install libinput is not a solution? – Gocht Oct 12 '15 at 20:56
It may be or not. I did not test it. You can try it, because it is quite easy to revert. But libinput DOES support these gestures. – Pilot6 Oct 12 '15 at 21:00
I read some more code. xserver can use these events with libinput. – Pilot6 Oct 12 '15 at 21:04
Weel I think I need to read more about. – Gocht Oct 12 '15 at 21:05
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. – Pilot6 Oct 12 '15 at 21:07
libinput will limit some other Ubuntu's functions? – Gocht Oct 12 '15 at 21:08
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. – Pilot6 Oct 12 '15 at 21:10
Thanks for this, I have Elantech so is a good choice? – Gocht Oct 12 '15 at 21:12
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. – Pilot6 Oct 12 '15 at 21:14
Then, the logic question: Why Ubuntu does not come with libinput by default? – Gocht Oct 12 '15 at 21:17
Because libinput is new and was released this summer. In Ubuntu 15.10 libinput is included in the official repos and is optional. – Pilot6 Oct 12 '15 at 21:19
@Gocht Please report if you could setup the 3-finger swipe. – Pilot6 Oct 12 '15 at 21:41
I have been readong a little, what about xSwipe? Does it works on Ubuntu 14.04? Is it an option? – Gocht Oct 15 '15 at 02:35
I think xSwipe will work. – Pilot6 Oct 15 '15 at 09:58
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? – Gocht Oct 18 '15 at 04:09
I think libinput+touchegg should work. – Pilot6 Oct 18 '15 at 08:09
I can confirm that three-finger-swipe works in 22.04 on Wayland, but not on Xorg. – Stefan_EOX Nov 25 '22 at 10:34

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 22 '17 at 17:37

0

You should try comfortable-swipe-ubuntu.

I'm using Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, but it says it works for Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and above. Haven't tested on other environments, but I think it should work if libinput is supported (e.g. Arch, Fedora).

answered Oct 22 '17 at 17:37

Rico

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

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