Page 1 of 4 123 ... LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 39

Thread: HOWTO: Turn Touchpad On and Off On your Laptop

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Location
    Ontario Canada
    Beans
    269
    Distro
    Ubuntu 6.06

    HOWTO: Turn Touchpad On and Off On your Laptop [UPDATED]

    ****NEW VERSION AT BOTTOM****

    Ok For All you that have the problem of a touchpad where you have no options to turn them on and off, heres what i did to solve my problem and it works. but youll need to take a few steps to get it to work so i hope you dont mind lol.

    Step 1:
    Ok first off you need to edit your Xorg File and add the following line of code to it to allow you to turn your touchpad on and off.
    Code:
    #Before
    Section "InputDevice"
    	Identifier	"Synaptics Touchpad"
    	Driver		"synaptics"
    	Option		"SendCoreEvents"	"true"
    	Option		"Device"		"/dev/psaux"
    	Option		"Protocol"		"auto-dev"
    	Option		"HorizScrollDelta"	"0"
    EndSection
    Code:
    #After
    Section "InputDevice"
    	Identifier	"Synaptics Touchpad"
    	Driver		"synaptics"
    	Option		"SendCoreEvents"	"true"
    	Option		"Device"		"/dev/psaux"
    	Option		"Protocol"		"auto-dev"
    	Option		"HorizScrollDelta"	"0"
    	Option      	"SHMConfig" 		"on"
    EndSection
    you need to create 2 bash scripts.. one to turn the touchpad on, and one to turn it on..

    so this would be the start of it
    Step 2
    Name This File tpoff
    Code:
    #!/bin/bash
    #
    
    synclient touchpadoff=1
    And this file tpon
    Code:
    #!/bin/bash
    #
    
    synclient touchpadoff=0
    These will be your on and off switches

    Step 3
    when you are done both, chmod both to 777 and move both to /usr/local/bin/
    Code:
    sudo chmod 777 tpon tpoff
    sudo mv tpon /usr/local/bin/
    sudo mv tpoff /usr/local/bin/
    onces thats done.. you will need to edit your sudoers files to allow you to exe both scripts without a password.

    Step 4
    so use the following command
    Code:
    sudo visudo
    and add these 2 lines
    Code:
    {user}   ALL = NOPASSWD: /usr/local/bin/tpoff 
    {user}   ALL = NOPASSWD: /usr/local/bin/tpon
    where {user} is your user name

    then save.

    Step 5
    Next install the following 2 programs

    xbindkeys
    Code:
    sudo apt-get install xbindkeys
    and xbindkeys-config, the GUI for xbindkeys
    Code:
    sudo apt-get install xbindkeys-config
    once installed start both application
    Code:
    xbindkeys
    and
    Code:
    xbindkeys-config
    Step 6
    then go ahead and edit your file to the shortcuts you want to exe the script with. then for the action, set it to /usr/local/bin/ (the name of the script)


    The way i set mine up is as follows, under Edit:
    Name: Touchpad Off
    Key: Control + F5 | m:0x4 + c:71
    Action: /usr/local/bin/tpoff

    Thats it for turning it off.

    then at the bottom, hit New and enter the following
    Name: Touchpad On
    Key: Control + F6 | m:0x4 + c:72
    Action: /usr/local/bin/tpon

    then click apply & save & exit

    Now that that is done we have to restart the xbindkeys.

    Code:
    xbindkeys
    Now go try it out and have some fun.. your touchpad problems are now solved

    If there are any suggestions or anything please feel free to post it. My next revision is to make it with jsut one key and one script. but since this is my first howto... go easy on me

    For all those who are sick of the touchpad always messed up for work.. your welcome


    ~Lance

    Ok Above Was The Previous Version. I want to point out that i did change the previous howto to include step numbers. those will be seen below .

    Follow These Steps.. any wth a * refer to the ones above has they have not changed:

    *Step 1

    Step 2
    Download the file i have attached below and upack it to /usr/local/bin/
    ones unzipped, you will have to chmod it to 777.
    Code:
    chmod 777 /usr/local/bin/touchpad.py
    Step 3
    Edit the sudoers file (like above).. but change the 2 lines you need to insert to jsut this line:
    Code:
    {user}     ALL = NOPASSWD: /usr/local/bin/touchpad.py
    Step 4
    refer to *Step 5

    Step 5
    Now Here Is Where The Real Update Is. Instead of having to remember 2 key combos to turn it on and off... this script i made will use only one key combo and do both functions life jsut got easier.

    The way i set mine up is as follows, under Edit:
    Name: Touchpad Control
    Key: Control + F5 | m:0x4 + c:71
    Action: /usr/local/bin/touchpad.py

    Step 6
    Restart xbindkeys and your set to go ENJOY EVERYONE!
    Attached Files Attached Files
    Last edited by noob_Lance; March 14th, 2006 at 08:38 AM. Reason: updating it with a new and easier script.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Location
    localhost.de
    Beans
    496
    Distro
    Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron

    Re: HOWTO: Turn Touchpad On and Off On your Laptop

    Into which section of the xorg.conf do I have to put:

    SHMconfig "on"

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Location
    Ontario Canada
    Beans
    269
    Distro
    Ubuntu 6.06

    Re: HOWTO: Turn Touchpad On and Off On your Laptop

    oh crap... i forgot all about that. you should put it as the last thing in your input device section for your touchpad. Ill have to go and edit that into the howto. thanks for the reminder..

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Beans
    428
    Distro
    Hardy Heron (Ubuntu Development)

    Re: HOWTO: Turn Touchpad On and Off On your Laptop

    On my laptop, I just need to do Fn + F7.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Location
    Ontario Canada
    Beans
    269
    Distro
    Ubuntu 6.06

    Re: HOWTO: Turn Touchpad On and Off On your Laptop

    then your lucky and have the function built into your laptop.. this is for those who are as lucky >,<

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
    Beans
    146

    Re: HOWTO: Turn Touchpad On and Off On your Laptop

    noob_Lance, you rock, this works perfectly on my Thinkpad! I've seen probably a half-dozen threads on this forum where others were wanting this same thing, so I'm sure others will find this solution helpful as well. No more annoying touchyness while typing!
    Killed my Edgy/XP dual-boot for now, moved to Vista. So far, so good.
    Cool Links: DAPreview (MP3 Player News & Reviews) | Deadspin (Sports news with a twist)

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Location
    Ontario Canada
    Beans
    269
    Distro
    Ubuntu 6.06

    Re: HOWTO: Turn Touchpad On and Off On your Laptop

    Im glad to hear it Super King. Ill be sure to send you off a PM when i get the program to work that im working on. it makes it so only the ctrl+F5 (or whatever key combo you use) will turn it on and off get that working and it will all be good. Hell i was even thinkin to myself at work.. maybe create an all out program that will do all this.. in a simple deb (if i can learn how to make those too haha)

    Anyways. Everyone... until i complete the program.. ENJOY!

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Location
    Ontario Canada
    Beans
    269
    Distro
    Ubuntu 6.06

    Re: HOWTO: Turn Touchpad On and Off On your Laptop

    Everyone The Howto Has Been Updated!

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Beans
    33

    Re: HOWTO: Turn Touchpad On and Off On your Laptop

    Sorry to resurrect an old topic, but this is related to synaptics and figured it'd be a good place to ask. Is there a way to automatically run a script, or scripts, upon, or after X startup? I'd like to run "syndaemon -d -i 2" after the xorg.conf is read and the SHMConfig is seen to be set to "on." This will disable the touchpad whilst you are typing and won't enable it again until 2 seconds after your last keystroke, but will not work until it sees that SHMConfig is set to "on."

    This'd be a question I could easily answer myself if it were years ago, but it's been at least 5 years since I've run linux, freebsd, or anything of the sort and the XOrg setup/config seems to be a lot different from good ole' XFree86.

    Thanks much for any help. Very new to Ubuntu, and linux in general has changed a lot since I last used it, so please excuse my ignorance.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Feb 2006
    Location
    Athens, GA
    Beans
    21
    Distro
    Ubuntu Breezy 5.10

    Re: HOWTO: Turn Touchpad On and Off On your Laptop

    Hi,
    So I have a Dell Lattitude D610 that has both a touchpad and an eraser point mouse. Is there any way I can turn off the touchpad (which is driving me nuts) and keep the eraser point (trackpoint) on?
    Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!
    Cheers,
    patrick

Page 1 of 4 123 ... LastLast

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •