CrunchBang Linux

Piraja

#! Die Hard

From: Lost River Lake

Registered: 2009-02-19

Posts: 523

Disabling Touchpad Tap-to-Click with GSynaptics [NB the Caveat!]

NOTA BENE: CAVEAT: You should probably follow Papparonny's guide instead, his original post in the thread disabling touchpad tap-to-click, because I could not figure out how to make the GSynaptics changes persistent. [EDIT: See my second post below. I could make it persistent, after all, in spite of the fact that the GUI interface, gsynaptics, claims that I have tap-to-click enabled!]

I also found out that KDE users have reported the non-persistence as a bug against ksynaptics and that the ksynaptics application is actually obsolete. The issue might be the same with gsynaptics. Too bad.

But, in any case, if you have any use for non-sticky Synaptics settings, read ahead...

* * *

I find the "tapping" function in a laptop touchpad, usually enabled by default, rather annoying and wanted to disable it. I found a tutorial covering several methods at the Ubuntu Community Documentation pages and wanted to share the solution that I found very handy.

First, edit the SHM configuration file:

gksudo gedit /etc/hal/fdi/policy/shmconfig.fdi

This creates an empty file. You can naturally replace "gedit" with an editor of your choice ("leafpad", for instance, or use "sudo nano" instead of "gksudo gedit"). Copy and paste the following XML code to the file, save and exit:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<deviceinfo version="0.2">
  <device>
    <match key="input.x11_driver" string="synaptics">
      <merge key="input.x11_options.SHMConfig" type="string">True</merge>
    </match>
  </device>
</deviceinfo>

Reboot the computer.

Next, install a GUI application for configuring the Synaptics touchpad, GSynaptics:

sudo apt-get install gsynaptics

After the installation is complete, launch the new application:

gsynaptics &

This is how it looks like – you see that you can easily configure also other touchpad features with GSynaptics:

I added an entry for the new app in the System menu, as follows:

<item label="Synaptics Touchpad Settings">
        <action name="Execute">
            <execute>
                gsynaptics
            </execute>
        </action>
    </item>

You can do it also by going to Preferences > Openbox config > GUI menu editor:

Nothing fancy here, just wanted to write down these easy steps – even for my own future reference, because this was not the first time I have disabled tapping, but I had to google for the instructions again, and previously I used a different method (edited xorg.conf).

P.S. When I launch GSynaptics from a terminal, I keep getting the following warning:

** (gsynaptics:12616): WARNING **: Using synclient

As far as I can see, this is not really a matter of concern. It's a warning and not an error message, and synclient is indeed supposed to be used by the app. But if anyone can shed some more light on that, it would of course be very welcome.

P.P.S. I just realized the change is not persistent, i.e. after you reboot, tapping is enabled again. Now we have to figure out a command to be included in autostart.sh...

Last edited by Piraja (2009-08-25 20:38:25)

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I never use smilies, but there are exceptions that prove the rule
Now playing: Libre.fm

Piraja

#! Die Hard

From: Lost River Lake

Registered: 2009-02-19

Posts: 523

Re: Disabling Touchpad Tap-to-Click with GSynaptics [NB the Caveat!]

I could make the change stick, after all. Take a look at the screenshot:

While GSynpatics claims that tapping is enabled, actually it is not. Adding the following lines to ~/.config/autostart.sh made the change permanent:

# Disable tap-to-click
synclient -l
synclient TapButton1=0
synclient TapButton2=0
synclient TapButton3=0
synclient VertTwoFingerScroll=1
synclient HorizTwoFingerScroll=1 &

Thanks for this should go to nabilalk.

(I am not sure, though, if the line "synclient -l" should actually be included or not. It is the command that lists, with "-l", the synclient options...)

Last edited by Piraja (2009-08-25 20:47:22)

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I never use smilies, but there are exceptions that prove the rule
Now playing: Libre.fm