Workaround for Ksynaptics. (Was preventing people from making a mistake)

[Gene Heskett]

On Monday 08 December 2008, Tim wrote:
>On Sun, 2008-12-07 at 20:46 -0500, Gene Heskett wrote:
>> I do my best to keep my thumbs away from that SOB, even using a
>> finger to tap the space bar when I'm composing an email, only to have
>> it do something off the wall cuz a finger or thumb got too close to
>> it.
>
>Mine does that, too, and it's bloody annoying.  In prior releases I
>managed to EASILY disable touchpad tapping without disabling other
>touchpad features, and that solved the problem.  For Fedora 9, I
>couldn't do so easily.  Installing the obvious package to control
>(gsynaptics, since I use Gnome) it refused to do anything.  The
>information about how to enable the package was lacking in useful
>details, i.e. *where* to put the extra settings into the xorg.conf file
>to get the SHMConfig enabling option to actually work.
>
>After making a bugzilla entry, which got cancelled for not really being
>a bug (I'm in two minds about that, because the package doesn't install
>itself in an operational way, and didn't provide enough information for
>you to manually enable it without the use of undocumented knowledge), I
>was left with information (on the final bugzilla entry) about how to
>disable my touchpad:
>
>   1. Reference the touchpad by adding "InputDevice "Synaptics Touchpad""
>   to the ServerLayout section.
>
>Which will allow me to use the gsynaptics program to twiddle my touchpad
>settings at will, and it's what I've done.  But from time to time, in
>the middle of using the computer, it fails, and suddenly the mouse
>pointer has done something that it shouldn't do.  Moments later, it's
>disabled again.  And no amount of trying to abuse the touchpad will make
>it fail.
>
>   2. Add the options to the
>   /usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/20thirdparty/10-synaptics.fdi file. This
>   way you don't need an xorg.conf entry for the touchpad at all. Add
>   each option in the form of
>   <merge key="input.x11_options.TapButton1" type="string">0</merge>
>   to the respective section (info.product is Synaptics Touchpad in your
>   case)
>
>But this would completely disable it for all users, with no way for a
>particular user to enable it, and I didn't like that idea.
>
>My BIOS gives me options to have the touchpad working or not working,
>with no auto-disable option.  It's a laptop, I might need to use the
>touchpad when I'm mobile, but I generally prefer to use a mouse, and it
>can be handy for page scrolling without scrabbling for the mouse.  An
>auto-disable when there's a mouse would be perfect for me, but I can't
>see a way to do it on Linux.
>
Neither can I.  Thanks Tim, the next time I fire that puppy up I'll try and 
remember this message and apply it.

But it bugs me no end that TPTB don't understand just how big a PITA this is.  
I'm with you, in that plugging in a regular mouse really should automatically 
disable that P.O.S.

>--
>[tim at localhost ~]$ uname -r
>2.6.27.5-41.fc9.i686
>
>Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored.  I
>read messages from the public lists.



-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
A possum must be himself, and being himself he is honest.
		-- Walt Kelly