Disable Touchpad?

zak89 · 2008-12-18 04:02:42

I am running Arch on an ancient Dell laptop. It's touchpad is physically damaged, and it occasionally causes the pointer to drift uncontrollably across the screen (even if the pad is not in use). I would like to permanently disable the touchpad and just use an external mouse. However, there are only two input sections in my xorg.conf file; one for the keyboard and one for a mouse. How can I disable the touchpad? Is there a module I can blacklist?

vogt · 2008-12-18 05:31:10

Hmm, it isn't that ancient, since otherwise you'd be complaining about a trackpoint/eraserhead cursor drifting

Perhaps the results of this experimentation would be useful: http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-974438.html

tomk · 2008-12-18 10:23:21

You should be able to turn it off in the BIOS.

.:B:. · 2008-12-18 10:56:51

Tomk: I've never seen such an option in any laptop BIOS at all... Most laptops have pretty basic BIOS options.

How about putting this in rc.local:

/usr/bin/synclient TouchpadOff=1

Should do the job - permanently .

vogt · 2008-12-18 15:33:57

@B not every touchpad was made by synaptics, or should that work where the driver isn't synaptics?

.:B:. · 2008-12-18 15:40:27

Good question... I have only one laptop and that comes with a synaptics touchpad, so . Synclient is indeed owned by the synaptics package, so it's very probable that it's synaptics-specific.

The thing is if you start blacklisting modules you disable any pointing device. Maybe it can be something hal-based, or udev. I have this as part of a udev rule, so my touchpad gets disabled when I enable my bluetooth mouse.

tomk · 2008-12-18 16:09:00

My ancient (now deceased) Dell laptop had a BIOS setting to disable the touchpad when an external mouse was plugged in - hence my suggestion.

.:B:. · 2008-12-18 16:46:52

This fancy Sony has nothing whatsoever . But then again, it won't even let me decide how much RAM to assign to the onboard GPU either...

.:B:. · 2008-12-22 07:10:20

vogt wrote:

@B not every touchpad was made by synaptics, or should that work where the driver isn't synaptics?

Vogt, while fixing my setup to have HAL handle my mouse, I found out I have no touchpad by synaptics:

[stijn@hermes ~]$ lshal | grep -i synaptics
[stijn@hermes ~]$ lshal | grep -i alps
  info.product = 'AlpsPS/2 ALPS GlidePoint'  (string)
  input.product = 'AlpsPS/2 ALPS GlidePoint'  (string)
  info.product = 'Bluetooth Controller (ALPS/UGPZ6)'  (string)
  info.vendor = 'Alps Electric Co., Ltd'  (string)
  usb_device.product = 'Bluetooth Controller (ALPS/UGPZ6)'  (string)
  usb_device.vendor = 'Alps Electric Co., Ltd'  (string)
  usb.vendor = 'Alps Electric Co., Ltd'  (string)
  usb.vendor = 'Alps Electric Co., Ltd'  (string)
  usb.vendor = 'Alps Electric Co., Ltd'  (string)

I do have an Alps one though, which works with the synaptics driver . So my guess would be the utility is usable with non-Synaptics devices too.

Arch Linux

#1 2008-12-18 04:02:42

Disable Touchpad?

#2 2008-12-18 05:31:10

Re: Disable Touchpad?

#3 2008-12-18 10:23:21

Re: Disable Touchpad?

#4 2008-12-18 10:56:51

Re: Disable Touchpad?

#5 2008-12-18 15:33:57

Re: Disable Touchpad?

#6 2008-12-18 15:40:27

Re: Disable Touchpad?

#7 2008-12-18 16:09:00

Re: Disable Touchpad?

#8 2008-12-18 16:46:52

Re: Disable Touchpad?

#9 2008-12-22 07:10:20

Re: Disable Touchpad?

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