Ksynaptics. (Was preventing people from making a mistake)

[Todd Zullinger]

Linuxguy123 wrote:
> On Sun, 2008-12-07 at 04:01 +0100, Kevin Kofler wrote:
> 
>> There are actually 2 reasons ksynaptics doesn't work:
>> 1. SHMConfig in the synaptics driver is disabled by default, for
>> security
>> reasons.
> 
> Please explain more.

For one, there is no authentication mechanism in SHMConfig.  This
means that any user on the system can send commands to modify the
touchpad settings even if they are not part of your X session.

There may be other significant security concerns as well, but this
alone prevents SHMConfig from being enabled by default.

> I'm guessing that 25% of the "leading edge" people that make up Fedora
> users are running laptops.   And as of this point in time, we have no
> way to control our touchpads.  We can't turn them off, we can't set a
> scroll area, we can't set the tap characteristics.  Nothing.

While the GUI apps don't seem to work without SHMConfig yet, you can
still tweak the settings in xorg.conf or, better yet, via HAL.  I used
to use xorg.conf since it existed by default anyway.  In F10, I've
moved my settings to /etc/hal/fdi/policy/11-synaptics.fdi, which I
created with the following contents:

<match key="info.product" contains="Synaptics TouchPad">
    <merge key="input.x11_options.CoastingSpeed" type="string">20</merge>
    <merge key="input.x11_options.MinSpeed" type="string">0.09</merge>
    <merge key="input.x11_options.MaxSpeed" type="string">0.18</merge>
    <merge key="input.x11_options.EdgeMotionMaxSpeed" type="string">600</merge>
</match>

Any of the settings from the synaptics manpage should be valid here.

Not that this is a great solution for users who want a GUI, but it
does allow you to tweak your settings until the GUI apps learn to work
without SHMConfig.

-- 
Todd        OpenPGP -> KeyID: 0xBEAF0CE3 | URL: www.pobox.com/~tmz/pgp
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A statesman is a dead politician. Lord knows, we need more statesmen.
    -- Opus

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