A second development snapshot of the xf86-input-synaptics DDX driver is now available with some changes to improve its touchpad support for modern laptops and ultrabooks.

Peter Hutterer at Red Hat previously made some big changes to the xf86-input-synaptics driver for supporting new touchpad hardware, mainly on recent Lenovo ThinkPad systems. The bulk of that work was rolled up into the first xf86-input-synaptics driver development release for version 1.8. The second xf86-input-synaptics 1.8 development release is now available.

The xf86-input-synaptics 1.7.99.2 driver disables GrabEventDevice by default, has a few event communication fixes, adds more PnPIDs and DMI matches for Lenovo hardware, and has other basic changes.

More details on this second xf86-input-synaptics 1.8 release can be found via the mailing list announcement. Hutterer has also written a new blog post about the updated touchpad support for Linux systems.