Tips on setting up Manjaro on a Dell XPS 15 (9560)

gistfile1.txt

2 key sites where I the information / help:
https://gist.github.com/MeirBon/c99ae4e9e40f7e542361f646e4f637f5
https://forum.manjaro.org/t/dell-xps-15-9560-jumpy-touchpad/82057/22

My Guide:

Video on dual boot setup (contains proper efi) : 
https://youtu.be/eO0DCK6fSPs

To write usb via windows use Etcher (straight forward) 

At the Manjaro boot GRUB screen, select non free drivers. With the Manjaro (to run line) selected press the e key and enter the necessary lines
 Run through the installer

At reboot GRUB menu, press e and again add the necessary lines (nogpumanager etc) and continue

At reboot: Update GRUB the final time with the lines necessary in /etc/default/grub and sudo update-grub

KDE:

-To adjust the taskbar icons, simply click on the very right hand side icon. In the resulting action, look in the middle of the task bar, hover over where it says height, and when your cursor changes, move the height up.
-To adjust the size of the system tray icons: https://forum.manjaro.org/t/increase-the-size-of-tray-icons-kde/12449/4
-To adjust the mouse speed, in the menu launcher type Touchpad, and increase the acceleration
-To adjust the screen resolution, in the system settings type scale, go to Display and Monitor, Scale Display (here you can click the slider for a preset, OR slide the slider for fractional control). NOTE that you have to log out and in for changes to take effect
-To change icon size, in System settings, type icons, go to the icon section and towards the bottom choose Configure Icon Size. This takes a log out and back in to take effect
-To change window focus, in System Settings type focus, go to Window Management and change it there.
-Set fastest mirrors (limit 10): sudo pacman-mirrors --fasttrack 10 && sudo pacman -Syyu
-Wifi not working, could be chip is in powersaving mode, see this to disable: https://gist.github.com/jcberthon/ea8cfe278998968ba7c5a95344bc8b55
-Set bash to vi: Add set -o vi to the end of .bashrc (then source ~/.bashrc
-To have sudo across terminals: “sudo visudo” then add the line
  -Defaults !tty_tickets
-Manjaro thread on mouse jumpy issue: https://forum.manjaro.org/t/dell-xps-15-9560-jumpy-touchpad/82057/12
-To fix the jumpy trackpad, and add more options, you DO need to instal the synaptics driver despite the documentation saying NOT to as it is no longer supported by doing the following
   --Install the driver: sudo pacman -S xf86-input-synaptics
   --Add the following config by creating a the file sudo vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-touchpad.conf:

#/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-touchpad.conf                                                                                                                                              
#synaptics/elan touchpad

Section "InputClass"
   Identifier "touchpad"
   Driver  "synaptics"
   MatchIsTouchpad  "on"
   Option      "VertScrollDelta" "-200"
   Option      "HorizScrollDelta" "-200"
#   Option      "MinSpeed"  "1"
#   Option      "MaxSpeed"  "1.5"
   Option      "Protocol"  "event"
   Option      "HorizHysteresis"  "0"
   Option      "VertHysteresis"   "0"
   Option      "PalmDetect"       "1"
   Option      "PalmMinZ"         "150"
   Option      "GrabEventDevice"  "1"
EndSection


-To see all available options use the tool synclient, synclient -h and man synclient

Hey Brohan, I followed this guide and my track pad is still quite jumpy. Any idea what I can do to trouble shoot this?

If I just run synclient I'm shown: Couldn't find synaptics properties. No synaptics driver loaded? fyi.

Edit: I just realized this guide is for KDE, and I'm running Gnome. Are you familiar with how I can follow this process with Gnome?

Did you install the synaptics driver:

"
-To fix the jumpy trackpad, and add more options, you DO need to instal the synaptics driver despite the documentation saying NOT to as it is no longer supported by doing the following
--Install the driver: sudo pacman -S xf86-input-synaptics
"

Yes I did.

Unfortunately I don't have any more insight to resolving the issue.