Alps touchpad not recognized

Question

I had an issue while trying the live version of elementary OS Freya: My touchpad (an alps touchpad) won't work as a touchpad really but is recognized as a mouse, so I can't use gestures for example two finger scroll. In my opinion this is a problem related to drivers, but every solution I've found on the internet has not worked for me. Can I make it work in some way? It's the only reason that restrains me from switching from Windows to elementary OS.

Additional informations that may help:

• the laptop is HP stream 14
• CPU is AMD APU 6500 micro-T
• integrated radeon R3 graphics
• alps touchpad
• windows 8.1 currently installed

Answer 1

Reverse Engineered ALPS driver

People report successful multitouch support with some alps touchpads when using the driver located at this page. Download that file then in a terminal do the following...

cd ~/Downloads
tar vxf psmouse-alps-1.3-alt.tbz
sudo cp -r ./usr/src/psmouse-alps-1.3/ /usr/src/
sudo dkms add psmouse/alps-1.3
sudo dkms autoinstall
sudo rmmod psmouse && sudo modprobe psmouse

Upgrade Kernel

This forum post seems to indicate that upgrading your kernel to version 3.19 may also work. While this can be done with a simple command, you may run into other issues in doing so. Certainly don't attempt this on an install you can't afford to lose. If you feel brave or have nothing to lose run the following in a terminal. Note: This will only work on an installed elementaryOS, not on a live DVD/USB. You must reboot afterwards to boot to the newer kernel.

sudo apt-get install linux-generic-lts-vivid