Disable touchpad on a ThinkPad
 

I have a Lenovo thinkpad which has both a touchpad and a trackpoint device. By default both are enabled which (for me) is not welcome. I prefer the trackpoint device and when I use this I inadvertently make "gestures" on the touchpad which do things like flip to a new desktop, scroll up my file etc.

I have found a good and reliable way to disable the touchpad from within an X session but using the x input command. I have written a little script which does the job fine.

However I would really like to go one step further and disable it before I ever start X. Currently, even when I disable it with xinput, it comes back enabled whenever I wake up from sleep state. I tried putting my disabling script into the "hooks" for pm-utilts, but of course these all run as root and there is no root X session open when they are running, so that fails.

I also tried calling the script from the ~/.xsession script, but with no success here either.

I guess the correct way to do this is through writing or modifying some udev rules. I have not dabbled in this magic before. Any ideas on where to start?

Thanks

Would something like this be of assistance?

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=92896

Use synclient.

synclient TouchPadOff=1

Most ThinkPads have an option in BIOS to disable your TrackPoint or UltraNav. I just bought my new X201 without the UltraNav, but they sent me one with it! Talked to customer support, and since it's a refurbished unit, they wouldn't take it back. All I had to do was press the ThinkVantage button on startup, and disable the Trackpad.

Thanks for those very quick replies - the thread suggested by corp769 looks particularly useful since it explains how to use synclient (thanks, dive) in the absence of a running X session. Jinx_wolf's suggestion will be a fallback if I cannot fix it through synclient / udev since disabling in the BIOS means I could not easily re-enable it.

Thanks again.

Not a problem. I posted that thread cause why should I explain what to do thoroughly when I could just find in online for you...