Synaptic Touchpad Deactivate

Hello, I have looked this up and have not seen much update to this.

I have an S96j with a Synaptic Touchpad, and can not deactivate the touchpad. I have downloaded the GSnaptic program but it does not work due to some "SHM" error in Xorg. Any ideas?

 

If you want to remove it completely, you can deactivate it's section in your /etc /X11/xorg.conf file (be careful if it's your CorePointer. You need at least one CorePointer entry). As far as just temporarily deactivating it, I haven't ever wanted to, so I can't be of much help.

 

After installing gsynaptics, you need to add a line in your Xorg to allow it to manage the touchpad properly.

Code:

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Synaptics"
Driver "synaptics"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "yes"
Option "SHMConfig" "true"
EndSection

This is just a sample, don't copy and paste over the whole lot. Just add the SHMConfig line to the section, save, and restart your X server. This worked for me.

 

You could try messing with a couple options below (code is snipped from my /etc/X11/xorg.conf):

Code:

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier      "Alps Touchpad"
        Driver          "synaptics"
#       Option          "CorePointer"
        Option          "SendCoreEvents"        "true"
        Option          "Device"                "/dev/input/mouse0"
        Option          "Protocol"              "auto-dev"
        Option          "LeftEdge"              "60"
        Option          "RightEdge"             "830"
        Option          "TopEdge"               "70"
        Option          "BottomEdge"            "650"
        Option          "FingerLow"             "25"
        Option          "FingerHigh"            "30"
        Option          "MaxTapTime"            "180"
        Option          "MaxTapMove"            "110"
        Option          "EmulateMidButtonTime"  "75"
        Option          "VertScrollDelta"       "50"
        Option          "HorizScrollDelta"      "50"
        Option          "MinSpeed"              "0.2"
        Option          "MaxSpeed"              "0.5"
        Option          "AccelFactor"           "0.01"
        Option          "EdgeMotionSpeed"       "40"
        Option          "UpDownScrolling"       "1"
        Option          "TouchpadOff"           "0"
        Option          "SHMConfig"             "true"
EndSection

For instance, the most interesting line for me was "TouchpadOff". I have a Fn key that disables my touchpad on my laptop, so I've never had to use it, but maybe it will work for you.

Good luck!

 

This might be kinda weird, but I dont have that option in my Xorg.conf file. Do I have to go to the root user such as in Fedora or do I access it through the terminal as sudo?

 

You'll have to insert that line into your xorg.conf as root. In Ubuntu, you can do this pretty easily by running:

Code:

sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

which will open up a text editor as root and allow you to configure and save it at will. You may want to back up the current file first:

Code:

sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.bak

 

Alright, that what I have been doing, but I dont see anything with the section: synaptics. I have installed gsynaptics but do not see anything about that.

 

Well, the section is actually called "Input Device," not "Synaptics." But assuming you realized that already, you may not have a synaptics touchpad, though I've never actually seen a laptop that doesn't have one.

 

Hmmm... I have an Asus S96j and in Windows I use Synaptics Touchpad drivers to run my touchpad. In the input device area this is what it looks like:

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver "mouse"
Option "CorePointer"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Driver "wacom"
Identifier "stylus"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/wacom"
Option "Type" "stylus"
Option "ForceDevice" "ISDV4"# Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Driver "wacom"
Identifier "eraser"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/wacom"
Option "Type" "eraser"
Option "ForceDevice" "ISDV4"# Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Driver "wacom"
Identifier "cursor"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/wacom"
Option "Type" "cursor"
Option "ForceDevice" "ISDV4"# Tablet PC ONLY

 

As far as I know, the Synaptics driver is built into the kernel, so you may be able to just edit your xorg.conf to say

Code:

Identifier     "Synaptics"
Driver      "Synaptics"

and see what happens.

 

I ran into the same problem with Feisty; it just doesn't detect the Synaptics touchpad on its own. You have to manually add that section in the xorg.conf file.

 

So I have to add which code to the xorg? (The one Notebook_ftw wrote) or something different?

 

This is what the section looks like in my xorg.conf file:

Code:

Section "InputDevice"
	Identifier	"Synaptics Touchpad"
	Driver		"synaptics"
	Option		"SendCoreEvents"	"true"
	Option		"Device"		"/dev/psaux"
	Option		"Protocol"		"auto-dev"
	Option		"HorizScrollDelta"	"0"
	Option		"SHMConfig"		"true"
EndSection

 

Thanks Aurora, that did it. Although I had to also add in xorg [ inputdevice "synaptics touchpad" ]