I do NOT want the touchpad, ever. Apart from taking the PC apart and physically removing the connection, and that remains a possibility, what can I do? I have tried commenting out all the lines in /etc/X11/xorg.conf but nothing happens.

Latest Zenwalk in an Asus b43f.

I use the xinput method described here... http://blog.yjl.im/2010/12/using-xin...ard-mouse.html

steve[~]$ xinput list
⎡ Virtual core pointer id=2 [master pointer (3)]
⎜ ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer id=4 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ Mouse1 id=6 [slave pointer (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard id=3 [master keyboard (2)]
↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard id=5 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Keyboard1 id=7 [slave keyboard (3)]
steve[~]$ xinput list-props Mouse1
Device 'Mouse1':
Device Enabled (115): 1
Coordinate Transformation Matrix (117): 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000
Device Accel Profile (225): 0
Device Accel Constant Deceleration (226): 1.000000
Device Accel Adaptive Deceleration (227): 1.000000
Device Accel Velocity Scaling (228): 10.000000
steve[~]$ xinput list-props Virtual core XTEST keyboard
unable to find device Virtual
unable to find device core
unable to find device XTEST
unable to find device keyboard
steve[~]$ Virtual core XTEST keyboard

Does not show a touchpad? But shows info mouse.

My netbook has a Synaptics touchpad, the most common type. Whereas upon checking, your Asus b43f laptop has an Elantech touchpad, one that I've not heard of before.Yes, I agree entirely. Whenever I reinstall, disabling that touchpad is the first order of business. But the methods I've used may not work on your Elantech touchpad device. But searching on Google with "linux elantech touchpad ~disable" suggests that others have had the same problem too, with solutions.

I use Debian, and gpointing-device-settings is a settings gui for pointing devices, that might work with Elantech. Not sure if that package is in your repos though.Did you have a mouse plugged in? From what little I've read about Elantech, they've found a hacky way to make it work with the Synaptics drivers. But they say it doesn't always show up in 'xinput list' as Elantech. Sometimes as Synaptics, or sometimes as a mouse instead.

A IT guy tried a few things (I cannot say what) but gave up due to lack of time and disconnected the touchpad physically. It certainly works that way, or doesn't work ....

For future reference, what sometimes works is if the pad is seen by the synaptic client. You can tell with

synclient -l

If it lists some stuff, the touchpad is seen by by the synaptics driver. (ELantech should work with the synaptic, as should Sentelic--both becoming more popular with some of the ultra books, and fortunately, some of the kernel folks are adding support.)

Now, if this particular mouse works with synaptics,


https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php...ouse_detection

might work.

The one that works for me, to disable while typing (but doesn't disable entirely)

syndaemon -t -k -i 2 -d &

Just curious... why?

jlinkels

I prefer to use a mouse and the pb is that I touch the touchpad accidentally while typing. Very annoying. I have tried touchpads but I cannot get used to this as a way of using the PC.

Ah ok. Personal preferences.

jlinkels