[kde-linux] Re: Disable trackpad for one user account?

[Duncan]

Mark Knecht posted on Wed, 23 Feb 2011 11:18:07 -0800 as excerpted:

> Is there a way in KDE to disable the trackpad in an Asus laptop for a
> single user? She's having trouble typing without making mistakes and
> prefers to use an external mouse as a pointing device.

I don't believe there's a kde method, no, but there are certainly 
methods...  Of course, the (AFAIK hardware/BIOS) touch-pad disable hotkey 
on my Acer Aspire One netbook is a nice feature.  

But what really made a difference for me was switching to the synaptics 
driver (xf86-input-synaptics on Gentoo, which both you and I use).  While 
there's all sorts of fancy touchpad config options for it and I use some 
of them, simply switching to that driver cured the hypersensitivity issue 
that had me accidentally activating the mouse at unwanted times, without 
any of the fancy config options at all.  The evdev and mouse drivers 
provide enough functionality to get by, but that's about it, so I 
DEFINITELY recommend switching to the syntouch driver.  Here's the file I 
have in xorg.conf.d (IIRC requires xorg-server >=1.8 with udev not hal 
hotplugging):

Section "InputClass"
        Identifier              "syntouch"
        MatchIsTouchpad         "on"
        MatchDevicePath         "/dev/input/event*"
        Driver                  "synaptics"
        Option                  "SHMConfig"

        Option                  "VertTwoFingerScroll"
        Option                  "HorizTwoFingerScroll"

        Option                  "TapButton1"                    "1"
        Option                  "TapButton2"                    "2"

        Option                  "EmulateTwoFingerMinW"          "10"
        Option                  "EmulateTwoFingerMinZ"          "47"
        Option                  "EmulateMidButtonTime"          "500"

        Option                  "FingerHigh"                    "35"
        Option                  "FingerLow"                     "28"
        Option                  "FingerPress"                   "255"
        Option                  "MaxTapMove"                    "442"
        Option                  "TrackstickSpeed"               "5"

        Option                  "EdgeMotionMinZ"                "35"
        Option                  "EdgeMotionMaxZ"                "68"
        Option                  "EdgeMotionMinSpeed"            "1"
        Option                  "EdgeMotionMaxSpeed"            "201"
        Option                  "EdgeMotionUseAlways"
EndSection

There's also the syndaemon program, part of the above xf86-input-synaptics 
package, which "monitors keyboard activity and disables the touchpad when 
the keyboard is being used."  Before I switched to the synaptics driver, I 
thought sure I'd need it as the sensitivity was just ridiculous, but after 
trying the synaptics driver I realized I no longer needed the daemon, as 
things "just worked" as I expected.  However should you decide you need it 
anyway, despite its name, syndaemon is a user runnable program that could 
be setup to start with the kde user session or possibly even with a CLI 
session (I'm not sure on the last); it need not be configured as a system 
daemon and indeed, the package comes with no /etc/init.d/syndaemon file 
that would be used to start it as a system level service, so running it as 
an individual user seems to be the intent, at least as it's shipped by 
Gentoo.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman