I later worked out that I could have fixed the main problem temporarily during the install with the following command. I went through the install of Ubuntu by using the touchscreen (after all I would have to apply any fix to the installed system anyway) and then fixed the behaviour after the install. I had also ruled out a hardware problem as the touchpad worked fine in Windows 8 and Windows 8.1. This was bizarre especially as the touchscreen was working fine and that sometimes the touchpad appeared to work correctly. It turned out that it was when I was trying to drag a window (with the mouse button held down) that this would happen. It would sometimes appear to work, but then other times it would become completely erratic with windows being moved around the screen. I noticed some odd behaviour during the Ubuntu live desktop, whenever I used the trackpad. Mouse cursor went 'crazy' when trying to drag a window using the Dell synaptic touchpad This is sometimes called a clickpad as the entire pad can be cliked. The touchpad is a single rectangular area which appears to integrate the two 'mouse' buttons with a line marked on top of the touchpad. This is a 17' laptop with touchscreen and a Touchpad.
I recently bought a Dell Inspiron 17 laptop, to primarily run Linux.
