So I recently got an Acer C720 Chromebook (it's x86 not ARM in case you were wondering) and got it to work with Crouton which was, of course, pretty dang awesome and really straightforward. (Ubuntu 12.04 LTS I think)
But I realized that whenever I boot into Ubuntu, there's a weird problem with the touchpad; I have to use the entire flat side of the top of my finger, rather than just my fingertip, to use the touchpad, or else the cursor doesn't respond. It's also really jittery and sort of sticks. I can, however, just use my fingertips in Chrome OS. I've tried fiddling around with the touchpad settings in Ubuntu to no avail. I tried both the Unity and xfce desktop environments and it's the same behavior in both.
Also, because of how Chrome OS works, there's a lot of stuff I can't do on the chromebook such as caps lock (replaced by the search key and changeable in Chrome OS but it doesn't work in Ubuntu I think) or use function keys etc.
In addition, is there a way to get Linux Mint to work with Crouton? It's not included with Crouton by default, and I was just curious. Ubuntu just feels super clunky, and the cursor problems are also exceedingly annoying because it becomes hard to do anything. I'm not that great at figuring this stuff out and I'm also sort of new to Linux in general.
Finally, how might I ssh (e.g. into my school's department to submit homework); can I do so in Chrome OS or would I have to use Linux to do that?
Finally is there an easy way to modify key shortcuts? For instance, the search key is where caps lock should be by default, and you need to press alt+search in order to use caps lock. You may, however, change the search key to act as caps lock instead, but then there's no way for me to access search directly.
So basically 1) any ideas on how I might fix the touchpad/cursor problem, 2) how to access some of the keys in Ubuntu that I would be able to on a "standard" keyboard, and 3) how to perhaps install Linux Mint, 4) how does ssh work on Chrome OS, also in Linux, and 5) 4) how to change key functions in Chrome OS?
Thanks so much!
Okay I can just ssh from Chrome OS.
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For your touchpad problem, you need to look lower than what you can see in the desktop environment's configuration. The X server that's running the graphics has a command line tool named xinput.
You can do this to see a list of devices:
xinput --list
Then you take the number or the name of your device and use it for the --list-props parameter. You'll get a list of various properties you can set and what they are currently set to. There might be something about finger pressure or width etc.
To change one of the properties, you take the name of the device and the name of the property and use both for the --set-prop parameter.
After you are happy with some change, you can create a shell script with your commands and put it into the auto-start thingy of your desktop environment. That's a crappy solution because it will be forgotten after sleep/resume, but I don't know the correct way to do it. I assume there's a place where xinput gets its default values from and that's where the change should really be made.
You should also use the name of the device, not the number, in your script. The number may change if you connect a mouse or something, and your script will not work anymore.
EDIT: This page has a hint how to find out what to change: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SynapticsTouchpad
I mean the section "adjust touchpad sensitivity" and using the --watch-props parameter of xinput.
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EPT
