Hiya people,

I have a Toshiba Satellite P200 1A4 laptop with a Synaptics touchpad.
The distro in question is Slackware 12.1 with the generic-SMP kernel, in case it matters.

However, I don't like touchpads at all and prefer a normal mouse. So I'd like to know how I can disable it. I don't mean to disable it on the console or disable it in X, I wish to disable it alltogether.

Any help will be appreciated,

Alphons

If there is nothing in the BIOS to do this, you have 2 options: open up the case and find the touch pad connectors and disconnect them or, alternatively, tape a piece of card over the touch pad so you can't use it (and I have seen people do this!)

Try this in your /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Then restart X with <CTRL><ALT><BACKSPACE>
That should disable the tapping (probably the most annoying thing)
Perhaps if you set Option "SendCoreEvents" "false"
It will not do anything at all?

I'll go check the BIOS, thanks.

So there isn't anything I can do with the kernel, e.g. unloading some module or something?

Alphons

What is the point of us taking the time to answer your questions, if you pay no attention to the replies?

I just set my /etc/X11/xorg.conf like this (as I suggested above) and the touchpad is completely disabled when X is restarted.:Now I'd better undo that change.

Who says I'm running X?
Who says I even have X installed in the first place?

I appreciate your suggestion, but I specifically mentioned that I prefer a solution that doesn't depend on either X being there or the console being used.

Thanks anyway,

Alphons (Linux can actually run without X...)

It is possible that there's a setting in your kernel, but disabling it may disable your mouse support altogether. No reason you can't do some experimenting though - assuming you have the available time to compile and recompile your kernel.......

If I can't disable the touchpad in the BIOS I'll give it a whack. Should I report back if I find something?

Alphons

Yes please - it may help someone who is either trying to do the same or who wants to enable it and can't find it in the kernel.

Sorry: I mis-read your question. So my replies will not have helped you.
So, if you are not running X, or a console then what is it that the touchpad is doing that is so annoying you?

Actually, that's a good point. If you are in the CLI and do not need a mouse, you should uninstall gpm - that gives you mouse access in a CLI.

Actually, I do (occasionally) need a mouse. I just don't like touchpads, so I use a "normal" wired USB mouse.

Anyway, I think I may have found something while tinkering with the kernel config. As soon as I've verified that it really works, I'll report back with the results.

Thanks to both of you,

Alphons

The reason for wanting to disable the touchpad is that I keep accidentally touching it while typing - very annoying, particularly when I'm in vim's insert mode. I also simply don't like the way those thingies feel/handle.

Anyway, the solution turned out to be very simple: because the touchpad is identified as a PS/2 device (as an examination of dmesg revealed) I can simply remove PS/2 mouse support from the kernel (Device drivers -> Input device support -> Mice). In fact, even if I remove the "Mice" section alltogether, a USB mouse will still work - provided that USB support is still compiled in, of course.

Thanks again for the suggestions, I'm a little happier now

Alphons

Problem sorted then.

Interesting.... I'd like to know how to remove the support for your pad if you had a PS/2 mouse....