Cursor moves in a grid-like pattern

Support
1

Hello everyone,

I am having a very strange problem with Manjaro on my laptop. The cursor does not move smoothly, but rather it moves in steps, like it’s snapping to a grid along the x and y axes. I have found other reports of similar problems with (mostly) Lenovo laptops running Ubuntu.

My laptop is some sort of Samsung machine from around 2013. I got it off Craigslist just recently. It came with Windows 7 installed and the touchpad works fine in Windows, so it’s not a hardware defect. It also works fine with a USB mouse.

Any assistance is appreciated!

2

Maybe you will enjoy synaptics better?
Just install xf86-input-synaptics and see
(of course note that it comes with its own set of configuration and all that)

3

Please post

inxi -Fazy
4

Excuse the multiple edits - couldn’t get it to format nicely.

inxi -Fazy
System:
  Kernel: 5.8.11-1-MANJARO x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: N/A 
  parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.8-x86_64 
  root=UUID=bb0212a2-e4df-4b29-9cb4-9b33faa36a93 rw quiet apparmor=1 
  security=apparmor resume=UUID=45944897-2050-4f78-953a-c4fc6315aba5 
  udev.log_priority=3 
  Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.19.5 tk: Qt 5.15.1 wm: kwin_x11 dm: SDDM 
  Distro: Manjaro Linux

Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: SAMSUNG 
  product: 355V4C/355V4X/355V5C/355V5X/356V4C/356V4X/356V5C/356V5X/3445VC/3445VX/3545VC/3545VX 
  v: P03ABF.006.CP serial: <filter> Chassis: type: 9 v: 0.1 serial: <filter> 
  Mobo: SAMSUNG model: NP355V5C-A04CA v: BOARD REVISION 00 serial: <filter> 
  BIOS: American Megatrends v: P03ABF date: 10/23/2012

Battery:
  ID-1: BAT1 charge: 39.1 Wh condition: 48.8/48.8 Wh (100%) volts: 11.1/11.1 
  model: COMPAL PABAS0241231 type: Li-ion serial: <filter> status: Unknown 
  cycles: 83 

CPU:
  Topology: Dual Core model: AMD A6-4400M APU with Radeon HD Graphics bits: 64 
  type: MCP arch: Piledriver family: 15 (21) model-id: 10 (16) stepping: 1 
  microcode: 6001119 L2 cache: 1024 KiB 
  flags: avx lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm 
  bogomips: 10785 
  Speed: 1392 MHz min/max: 1400/2700 MHz boost: enabled Core speeds (MHz): 
  1: 1392 2: 1390 
  Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: Not affected 
  Type: l1tf status: Not affected 
  Type: mds status: Not affected 
  Type: meltdown status: Not affected 
  Type: spec_store_bypass 
  mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl and seccomp 
  Type: spectre_v1 
  mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization 
  Type: spectre_v2 
  mitigation: Full AMD retpoline, STIBP: disabled, RSB filling 
  Type: srbds status: Not affected 
  Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected 

Graphics:
  Device-1: AMD Trinity 2 [Radeon HD 7520G] vendor: Samsung Co driver: radeon 
  v: kernel bus ID: 00:01.0 chip ID: 1002:9990 
  Device-2: Silicon Motion WebCam SC-13HDL11939N type: USB driver: uvcvideo 
  bus ID: 3-5:4 chip ID: 2232:1029 serial: <filter> 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.9 compositor: kwin_x11 driver: radeon 
  FAILED: ati unloaded: modesetting alternate: fbdev,vesa display ID: :0 
  screens: 1 
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1366x768 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 361x203mm (14.2x8.0") 
  s-diag: 414mm (16.3") 
  Monitor-1: eDP res: 1366x768 hz: 60 dpi: 101 size: 344x193mm (13.5x7.6") 
  diag: 394mm (15.5") 
  OpenGL: renderer: AMD ARUBA (DRM 2.50.0 / 5.8.11-1-MANJARO LLVM 10.0.1) 
  v: 4.3 Mesa 20.1.8 compat-v: 3.1 direct render: Yes 

Audio:
  Device-1: AMD Trinity HDMI Audio vendor: Samsung Co driver: snd_hda_intel 
  v: kernel bus ID: 00:01.1 chip ID: 1002:9902 
  Device-2: AMD FCH Azalia vendor: Samsung Co driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel 
  bus ID: 00:14.2 chip ID: 1022:780d 
  Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.8.11-1-MANJARO 

Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet 
  vendor: Samsung Co driver: r8169 v: kernel port: e000 bus ID: 02:00.0 
  chip ID: 10ec:8168 
  IF: enp2s0 state: down mac: <filter> 
  Device-2: Qualcomm Atheros AR9485 Wireless Network Adapter 
  vendor: Samsung Co driver: ath9k v: kernel port: e000 bus ID: 03:00.0 
  chip ID: 168c:0032 
  IF: wlp3s0 state: up mac: <filter> 
  Device-3: Qualcomm Atheros AR3012 Bluetooth 4.0 type: USB driver: btusb 
  bus ID: 4-4:2 chip ID: 0cf3:3004 serial: <filter> 

Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 111.79 GiB used: 7.78 GiB (7.0%) 
  SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required. 
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Kingston model: SV300S37A120G size: 111.79 GiB 
  block size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s serial: <filter> 
  rev: BBF0 scheme: MBR 

Partition:
  ID-1: / raw size: 104.49 GiB size: 102.35 GiB (97.95%) used: 7.78 GiB (7.6%) 
  fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1 

Swap:
  Kernel: swappiness: 60 (default) cache pressure: 100 (default) 
  ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 7.29 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 
  dev: /dev/sda2 

Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 58.1 C mobo: N/A gpu: radeon temp: 58 C 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 

Info:
  Processes: 147 Uptime: 1h 58m Memory: 3.32 GiB used: 1.22 GiB (36.9%) 
  Init: systemd v: 246 Compilers: gcc: N/A Packages: pacman: 1190 lib: 343 
  flatpak: 0 Shell: Bash v: 5.0.18 running in: yakuake inxi: 3.1.05

Also I have tried using Synaptics but installing it causes my touchpad and keyboard to stop working at the next reboot.

5

I would try some older kernels, such as 4.14 or 4.19. Install them via Manjaro Settings Manager and boot via Advanced Options from grub’s boot menu.

6

Installing and booting into older LTS kernels did not solve the problem. I’ll try downloading a really old Ubuntu live CD and see what happens.

7

I tried booting into the Ubuntu 9.10 live CD which runs Synaptics. The cursor works normally, as it does in Windows. So, it is certainly something to do with Libinput.