I have a Librem Purism V4 13" laptop. The touchpad only works under ideal conditions, and even then it can be a crapshoot. I’ve noticed that if the laptop is not on a totally flat surface, such as your lap, then the frame of the case is allowed to flex a small amount, and this will lead to a nearly unusable touchpad.
As other have mentioned in related threads, it feels as if there is a piece of dust stuck under the touchpad at times. I opened my laptop and checked the touchpad. I undid the screws and checked for dust, then made sure the screws were totally tight. This had no effect.
Librem Purism V5 laptops: add improving the touchpad to the priority list.
I wonder if the design is different, or perhaps not every laptop has this issue. It’s a fantastic machine overall, but of course an inability to rely on the touchpad functionality can be frustrating.
I’m also on a Librem 13v4 and never had that issue, touchpad has always worked great in any position. And I do use the thing as lap-top quite frequently…
But then again, I still long for the good old Pointing stick?
My v3 had this problem as well. After not being able to figure it out myself I sent it into Purism and they adjusted it so that it almost never happens now (I think its happened once when the laptop frame was twisted a little bit on my lap since then). But yeah, super annoying and get them to fix it asap
I undid the screws and checked for dust, then made sure the screws were totally tight.
Your screws are probably too tight. If you loosen the touchpad screws a bit (especially the 3 top screws which are not easily accessible behind the battery) it works a lot better. It’s probably a general factory/manufacturing issue of the V4’s where many of the touchpad screws are too tight.
