[SOLVED] Shut Off Touch Pad

tronayne · 11-23-2009, 07:36 AM

Is there any way to shut off a laptop touch pad? It's right where my hands rest and brushing it does strange and wonderful things when I'm trying to type (and I use an external USB mouse).

I kind of know that you can select only a specific device in /etc/X11/xorg.conf, but with the "new" way of doing things there isn't an /etc/X11/xorg.conf file (and, oh, by the way, that all seems to work just fine) so...

I'd rather not have to reinvent the entire system, just shut off that blasted thing when I don't want it (which is 99-44/100% of the time).

The installation is stock Slackware 13.0 (not 64 bit yet), Dell Inspiron 17 (yeah, it's dual-core 64 bit but I'm gonna wait a while).

sahko · 11-23-2009, 07:53 AM

You can disable it from the BIOS.

repo · 11-23-2009, 07:57 AM

Every laptop has a "fn + Fx" key to disable the touchpad.

kjhambrick · 11-23-2009, 08:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tronayne

Is there any way to shut off a laptop touch pad? It's right where my hands rest and brushing it does strange and wonderful things when I'm trying to type (and I use an external USB mouse).

I kind of know that you can select only a specific device in /etc/X11/xorg.conf, but with the "new" way of doing things there isn't an /etc/X11/xorg.conf file (and, oh, by the way, that all seems to work just fine) so...

I'd rather not have to reinvent the entire system, just shut off that blasted thing when I don't want it (which is 99-44/100% of the time).

The installation is stock Slackware 13.0 (not 64 bit yet), Dell Inspiron 17 (yeah, it's dual-core 64 bit but I'm gonna wait a while).

tronayne --

Danged if I can find it on the www now, but I installed synaptics via Robby Workman's synaptics-0.14.6 SlackBuild Script last year (2008-04-24).

The synaptics package included syndaemon and synclient.

In addition to all kinds of Touchpad Tuning, you can turn off the Touchpad via:

Code:

synclient TouchpadOff=1

Maybe Robby will see this post and point you at the appropriate SlackBuild for your version of Slackware.

-- kjh

tronayne · 11-23-2009, 08:53 AM

Danged if I can find a function key that'll turn the thing off (have to find a keyboard map for where the thing is) but...

The synclient way? It's part of the system (wow, zowie). Run

Code:

synclient TouchpadOff=1

And, viola, damn thing is dead to the world. I can type without curled-up fingers! No cursor jumping all over the place! No windows getting magically minimized! Thank you, kjh, for the hint.

All is well that ends.

H_TeXMeX_H · 11-23-2009, 01:15 PM

The way I do it is:

Code:

rmmod psmouse

But, it's probably not the best solution.

rworkman · 11-25-2009, 02:45 AM

Code:

liberty $ cat /home/rworkman/.config/autostart/synclient.desktop 
[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Name=SynClient
Exec=synclient TouchpadOff=1
StartupNotify=false
Terminal=false
Hidden=false

tronayne · 11-25-2009, 07:16 AM

Thanks Robby -- hadn't quite got that far yet and that makes it simple.