Synaptics driver goes hectic after changing policy.

Question

When I booted into a clean install of arch, two fingers moving on the touchpad at once just moved the mouse pointer. I updated the policy to emulate two finger scrolling and reboot, but then when I put two fingers on the touchpad, it jumps back and forth almost randomly, but one finger does fine. So I restored the policy to the default policy, but it doesn't want to go back to being stable, it continues to jump around even after the settings are the same as before. I think somehow it doesn't want to forget the new settings. I changed /usr/share/hal/fdi/10osvender/11-x11-synaptics.fdi and here's the before and after:
On fresh install:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<deviceinfo version="0.2">
<device>
<match key="info.product" contains="ETPS/2 Elantech Touchpad">
<append key="info.capabilities" type="strlist">input.touchpad</append>
</match>
<match key="info.capabilities" contains="input.touchpad">
<merge key="input.x11_driver" type="string">synaptics</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.TapButton1" type="string">1</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.TapButton2" type="string">2</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.TapButton3" type="string">3</merge>
<!-- Arbitrary options can be passed to the driver using
the input.x11_options property since xorg-server-1.5. -->
<!-- EXAMPLES:
Switch on shared memory, enables the driver to be configured at runtime
<merge key="input.x11_options.SHMConfig" type="string">true</merge>
Maximum movement of the finger for detecting a tap
<merge key="input.x11_options.MaxTapMove" type="string">2000</merge>
Enable vertical scrolling when dragging along the right edge
<merge key="input.x11_options.VertEdgeScroll" type="string">true</merge>
Enable vertical scrolling when dragging with two fingers anywhere on the touchpad
<merge key="input.x11_options.VertTwoFingerScroll" type="string">true</merge>
Enable horizontal scrolling when dragging with two fingers anywhere on the touchpad
<merge key="input.x11_options.HorizTwoFingerScroll" type="string">true</merge>
If on, circular scrolling is used
<merge key="input.x11_options.CircularScrolling" type="string">true</merge>
For other possible options, check CONFIGURATION DETAILS in synaptics man page
-->
</match>
</device>
</deviceinfo>
Me changing it:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<deviceinfo version="0.2">
<device>
<match key="info.capabilities" contains="input.touchpad">
<merge key="input.x11_driver" type="string">synaptics</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.SHMConfig" type="string">On</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.EmulateTwoFingerMinZ" type="string">50</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.EmulateTwoFingerMinW" type="string">6</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.VertTwoFingerScroll" type="string">1</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.HorizTwoFingerScroll" type="string">1</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.TapButton1" type="string">1</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.TapButton2" type="string">3</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.TapButton3" type="string">2</merge>
</match>
</device>
</deviceinfo>

Answer 1

*maybe* related to hal update, it completely screwed up my touchpad. try to downgrade hal (and restart it) to see if it helps. I'll open a bug report later today (if someone else didn't do it yet)