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

Matthew Saltzman mjs at clemson.edu
Mon Dec 8 16:32:39 UTC 2008


On Mon, 2008-12-08 at 20:15 +1030, 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.

This point in this thread seems as appropriate as any to mention
syndaemon.  It's part of the synaptics (now xorg-x11-drv-synaptics)
package.  When it runs, it disables the touchpad while the user is
actively typing on the keyboard and re-enables it after a brief pause
after the user stops typing.  Sounds very neat.  (I haven't felt the
need to actually use it, as I don't have too much trouble with
accidental tapping of my current touchpad.)

It does require setting SHMConfig, though, so that problem still needs
to be addressed.

> 
> 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.
> 
-- 
                Matthew Saltzman

Clemson University Math Sciences
mjs AT clemson DOT edu
http://www.math.clemson.edu/~mjs




More information about the fedora-list mailing list