HOW TO: Laptop Touchpad

[DoubleDangerClub]

What everyone has been waiting for:

Laptop Touchpad How-To
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This How-To guide applies to all PS2 and Serial synaptics touchpads as far as I can tell. We have not found this to work for emulated USB cPads (Synaptics cPad). Other than that...

Open a terminal window and type:

sudo gedit /etc/X11/XF86Config-4

Go to the section:

Section "Module"

Add this line inside this section:

Load "synaptics"

This line loads your synaptics touchpad settings at startup.
Now, as you scroll down, there should be a section that starts like this:

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver "mouse"

In this section, delete the line that says:

Option "CorePointer"

This will make sense later on, as the external mouse will be secondary to the touchpad.

As you scroll down further, you should see this section:

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad"
Driver "synaptics"
Option "SendCoreEvents"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
EndSection

Delete the line that says:

Option "SendCoreEvents"

Add a line that says:

Option "SHMConfig" "on"

The line you deleted will make sense later, as we will make the touchpad the primary pointer device.
The additional line enables your touchpad settings.

Finally scroll down to the bottom and you'll see this section:

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen "Default Screen"
InputDevice "Generic Keyboard"
InputDevice "Configured Mouse"
InputDevice "Synaptics Touchpad"
EndSection

Change the last two lines to look like this:

InputDevice "Configured Mouse" "SendCoreEvents"
InputDevice "Synaptics Touchpad" "CorePointer"

These additions will make the system set the touchpad to the primary pointer device and the external mouse as the secondary device.

Save the file and reboot!


You thought it was over? Almost. We now want to set our settings:
If you open a terminal window and type:

synclient -l

This shows you all of your touchpad settings.
If you reset any of the settings, you will lose them when you log out, so what we need to do is open the config file again:

sudo gedit /etc/X11/XF86Config-4

Now, scroll down to the section that starts like this:

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad"

Inside this section, you will want to add your settings.
Open another terminal window and type:

synclient -l

Now look at the setting you would like to change (I'm going to demonstrate turning off the tap click and the vertical and horizontal scrolling on the side and bottom of the touchpad). Look at the name of the setting and enter it in this fashion:

Option "MaxTapTime" "0"
Option "VertScrollDelta" "0"
Option "HorizScrollDelta" "0"

Now save your file and reboot. All done!!

If you go out on the net, you can find more references to synclient. I have even caught wind of a GUI version of the settings manager, but this is the most effective way I found to get it done.

I hope this helps. I was frustrated and finally figured it out, so good luck, and if you have questions about it, feel free to message me.

- Jake a.k.a. DoubleDangerClub