Dennis HilkLinux diagnosticsDE

Input & other peripherals

ALPS PS2 touchpad protocol family

ALPS PS2 touchpads use protocol detection above serio, rather than a USB VID/PID table.

Editorial source review: Share public profileOpen in the identification tool
On this page
  1. Overview & identity
  2. Driver & binding
  3. Firmware
  4. Read-only diagnostics
  5. Limitations & related issues
  6. References

Overview & identity

This profile covers the documented ALPS PS2 protocol family. There is no asserted PCI/USB pair, and the touchpad name alone does not establish a protocol revision or a particular laptop.

This is an explicit class, transport or driver-context profile. It is not an exact numeric product match.

A numeric match establishes a candidate family within the reviewed evidence. Marketing names, board variants, subsystem conditions and successful operation remain separate questions.

Driver & binding

ALPS detection and initialization are built into psmouse when the ALPS option is enabled. The same psmouse module supports other protocols, so its presence is contextual evidence rather than proof of an ALPS device.

  • psmouse — kernel driver/module candidate

Detected, bound, operational: learn the difference

Firmware

Device/revision dependent

No external firmware filename was established in the checked driver path. This does not describe firmware stored inside the device.

Inspect firmware packaging on your distribution

Read-only diagnostics

Run one displayed command at a time. Replace uppercase placeholders with the affected device, interface or module from your own output. Commands are never executed here. Read-only output can still contain private identifiers.

Inspect serio protocol binding

ls -l /sys/bus/serio/devices/*/driver

Read serio driver links without sudo. A keyboard may use atkbd and a pointer psmouse above the i8042 transport; no PCI/USB product identity should be synthesized from those module names.

Inspect input handlers and capabilities

cat /proc/bus/input/devices

This reads the input registry without sudo and does not capture keystrokes. Names, handlers and bus information help associate event nodes with hardware; a device entry alone does not prove desktop routing or correct calibration.

Limitations & related issues

Driver-family recognition does not establish every gesture, button layout or DualPoint component. Do not treat an unrelated USB/I2C touchpad using the ALPS brand as this PS2 protocol match.

These guides are linked for relevant observations, not as known defects of every device in this family.

Choose a hardware diagnostic workflow · Inspect a log excerpt in Fix Lab

References

Source review records a checked implementation or document, not a reproduced hardware test. Version-specific tables do not establish a minimum kernel or guaranteed operation.