Howto: Modify Laptop Touchpad Sensitivity

**Thund3rstruck** · July 18th, 2006

One of the things that really irritated me when I made the Ubuntu switch was the sensitivity of the laptop touchpad. It seemed to fly all over the screen and while browsing the web it appeared to open phantom links.

Here is a short walkthrough for turning off the 'tapping' feature in your touchpad and other touchpad irritations.

Backup your Xorg

Code:

$ sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.backup

Open your xorg configuration file for editting

Code:

$ sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Add this line at the bottom of the "InputDevices" section

Code:

Option          "SHMConfig"           "on"

Reboot the system or restart your gdm session

Code:

$ sudo shutdown -r now

Install qsynaptics package

Code:

$ sudo apt-get install qsynaptics

Run qsynaptics

Code:

$ qsynaptics

Once in qsynaptics, select the "Tapping" item from the listbox on the left hand side of the program and change the button configuration to Tapping "One Finger" means none.

**philidox** · March 20th, 2008

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!! That was just what I was looking for.

**kpkeerthi** · March 20th, 2008

Alternatively, add this option after SHMConfig under "Input Devices"

Code:

Option "MaxTapTime" "0"

**st0n3cutt3r** · April 10th, 2008

Originally Posted by philidox

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!! That was just what I was looking for.

my feelings exactly. @Thund3rstruck: now why doesn't your post have a 'thank you' button?

**Fabiooltje** · January 10th, 2010

I have Kubuntu, so for me some things were different:

not qsynaptics but gsynaptics (I installed it via kpackage)
not gedit but xedit

But otherwise, thanks a lot, because this was the solution for me, too!

**Fabiooltje** · January 11th, 2010

Hmmm... Another thing "different" is, that after restarting my laptop, the gsynaptics settings have returned to default. So tap-to-click was "on" again and I had to switch it off by launching the gsynaptics again...
If I have to do that every time...

There is no "save these settings" button in my gsynaptics.

Is there a way to make sure gsynaptics remembers the correct settings, or to change the settings automatically during startup of the computer?