Arch Linux

kyla

Member

From: Arlington, VA

Registered: 2011-03-12

Posts: 112

Website

Disable laptop keyboard

I want to disable the keyboard on my laptop. Most  of the keys don't work, and more troublingly, some of them do other than they're supposed to when pressed. (I think I shorted something when I tried to glue it back into place... feel free to mock) I don't really care if the touchpad gets disabled, but I want to make sure the power button still works (some things I  read seemed to lump that with the keyboard, and I'm wary of messing around too much when I'm reliant on a virtual keyboard).

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DSpider

Member

From: Romania

Registered: 2009-08-23

Posts: 2,273

Re: Disable laptop keyboard

Just today a similar question was asked: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=136527

I'm not sure, but try editing your /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-evdev.conf file to match something like this (and then restart X):

...
Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "evdev keyboard catchall"
        MatchIsKeyboard "yes"
        MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
        Driver "evdev"
        Option "KeyboardOff" "1"
EndSection
...

The power button and everything else will work up until you start X. If you really REALLY wanna keep *just* the power button working, you could probably nuke the rest of the keys from your default keyboard layout (obviously back it up first) from "/usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/", but I wouldn't recommend it... Again, I'm not sure, but it may affect the virtual keyboard too.

Just to be safe, disable any login managers first and boot only into runlevel 3 (for now), where you have to manually type "startx". Because in case something goes south and you can't log in, you'll probably have to use an external keyboard or a LiveCD... Tread lightly.

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"How to Succeed with Linux"

I have made a personal commitment not to reply in topics that start with a lowercase letter. Proper grammar and punctuation is a sign of respect, and if you do not show any, you will NOT receive any help (at least not from me).

kyla

Member

From: Arlington, VA

Registered: 2011-03-12

Posts: 112

Website

Re: Disable laptop keyboard

Thank you DSpider. I'm not sure, but it seems like that might mess up an external keyboard as well (?) which I would want to have working.

I'm going to wait for my external keyboard to arrive in the mail before I try this, in the mean time more ideas are welcome.

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