11.2 RC1 - Disable touchpad tap to click

English Install/Boot/Login
1

I’ve just installed 11.2 RC1, and for the most part it is fantastic. However, I cannot find a way to disable touchpad tapping. Originally my xorg.conf contained the following section, to which I added the last line setting MaxTapTime to zero:

Section “InputDevice”

Driver “mouse” will be disabled unless ‘Option “AutoAddDevices” “off”’

is set in “ServerFlags” section.

Driver “mouse”
Identifier “Mouse[1]”
Option “Buttons” “5”
Option “Device” “/dev/input/mice”
Option “Name” “SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad”
Option “Protocol” “explorerps/2”
Option “Vendor” “Sysp”
Option “ZAxisMapping” “4 5”
Option “MaxTapTime” “0”
EndSection

Adding “AutoAddDevices” “off” to the ServerFlags section didn’t help, it only disabled touchpad scrolling but not tap to click.

I then tried adding the following section to xorg.conf:

Section “InputDevice”
Driver “synaptics”
Identifier “Mouse[1]”
Option “Buttons” “5”
Option “Device” “/dev/input/mice”
Option “Emulate3Buttons” “on”
Option “InputFashion” “Mouse”
Option “Name” “Synaptics; Touchpad”
Option “Protocol” “explorerps/2”
Option “SHMConfig” “on”
Option “Vendor” “Sysp”
Option “ZAxisMapping” “4 5”
Option “MaxTapTime” “0”
EndSection

This also failed to disable touchpad tapping. I’ve searched extensively but I can’t find anything to fix this problem. So now I’m at the mercy of the more knowledgeable people in this forum. Any ideas on how to disable touchpad tapping that doesn’t require manually disabling it with gsynaptics every time X11 restarts? Any help would be greatly appreciated. This tapping business is driving me insane.

2

Hi
What DE are you using? In Gnome it’s in the Control Center -> Mouse ->
Touchpad tab where this can be set/changed.

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 11.2 RC 1 (i586) Kernel 2.6.31.3-1-desktop
up 16:20, 1 user, load average: 0.22, 0.18, 0.18
ASUS eeePC 1000HE ATOM N280 1.66GHz | GPU Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME

3

Sorry, should have specified that. I’m using KDE.

4

On 10/24/2009 12:26 PM, FiveInchTaint wrote:
>
> Sorry, should have specified that. I’m using KDE.

I have not found a KDE method to disable tapping that works and sticks
other that copying xorg.conf from 11.1 to 11.2.

5

Hi
What about in the KDE control panel (preferences??), nothing there to
change the features?

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 11.2 RC 1 (i586) Kernel 2.6.31.3-1-desktop
up 16:40, 1 user, load average: 0.17, 0.09, 0.09
ASUS eeePC 1000HE ATOM N280 1.66GHz | GPU Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME

6

Unfortunately, there is no GUI method for disabling tapping in KDE. I honestly don’t understand why this is the case, but for whatever reason the KDE folks have decided that touchpad tapping is Teh Awesome!!! and nobody in their right mind would want to turn it off.

7

Well, I think I may have found a solution. I created the following shell script:

#! /bin/sh
synclient MaxTapTime=0
synclient MaxDoubleTapTime=0

I then moved the script to the ~/.kde4/Autostart directory and made it executable. That seems to have done the trick. I originally tried to set it up to run at startup from the KDE Autostart section in the system setting window, but that didn’t work no matter how I set it up (i.e. to run at startup, pre-KDE startup, as a shell script, or as a program). Additionally, I think the script has to have .sh as it’s suffix to run from the ~/.kde4/Autostart directory, but I may be wrong. In any case, this seems to be working for me-touchpad tapping has been disabled for the last several restarts. That said, it would be still be awfully nice if future versions of KDE provided a simple GUI tool to do this.

8

To update my last post, my solution is no longer working. It seems that now I can’t get autostart to reliably run my script at startup. I have placed my shell script in the ~/.kde4/Autostart directory, as well as the ~/.kde4/env and ~/.kde4/share/autostart directories, and it still won’t run. And as before, using the KDE GUI autostart setup doesn’t work either. So once again, I’m stuck without any way to shut off touchpad tapping. Any advice would be greatly appreciated, because if I don’t get this figured out soon, I’m going to have to dump 11.2.

9

I wonder if this KDE 4.X kcm_touchpad tool might work for you.

The Packman repo has ‘touchfreeze’ available for openSUSE 11.X as well.

10

Hi
Since you seem to have two issues, why not report it as a bugs, else
wait a few days and install RC2? Or else use Gnome as it works fine
here :wink: <ducking>

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 11.2 RC 1 (i586) Kernel 2.6.31.3-1-desktop
up 7:15, 2 users, load average: 0.11, 0.14, 0.10
ASUS eeePC 1000HE ATOM N280 1.66GHz | GPU Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME

11

Thanks for the suggestions guys, but I think I might have it fixed. I noticed that on rare occasions autostart would work and tapping would be disabled at startup. This made me think that there might be some sort of timing issue, i.e. when my script was executed in the startup process. So I altered the script to delay the execution by 10 seconds after startup:

#!/bin/bash
sleep 10
synclient MaxTapTime=0

I put this script in my ~/.kde4/Autostart director. It has worked fine so far, and hopefully it will stay that way.

12

deano ferrari wrote:

>
> I wonder if this ‘KDE 4.X kcm_touchpad’
> (http://kde-apps.org/content/show.php/kcm_touchpad?content=113335) tool
> might work for you.
>
> The Packman repo has ‘touchfreeze’ available for openSUSE 11.X as well.
>
>

Thanks deano ! kcm_touchpad works just fine for me on RC2.

13

Glad to hear that. :slight_smile:

14

Jeez. I’m over here from Kubuntu. I’m glad I saw deano_ferrari’s post 'cause I was about to start hacking HAL files.

Kcmtouchpad seems good, after preliminary testing.

The big question: why the hell is this not in the default KDE4 release?

15

I’ve always used


synclient TouchpadOff=2

in my startup script in Fluxbox. This stops tapping completely but allows you to move the cursor and use edge scrolling…

16

This works! Thanks!

Just a note for any beginners like me who didn’t read the whole post (and maybe if you don’t know how to edit/run it).

  1. In terminal, type
sudo zypper in nano

It will then install the nano text editor which will be used to make the script.
2) Go to terminal again and type

sudo nano ~/.kde4/Autostart/mouse.sh
  1. On the screen now is the nano text editor. Either type or copy/paste the script into the prompt:
#! /bin/sh
synclient MaxTapTime=0
synclient MaxDoubleTapTime=0
  1. Save by pressing control + X and then pressing Y.
  2. To run the script copy/paste or type the following into terminal (exactly as is, do not miss the space):
. ~/.kde4/Autostart/mouse.sh

At that, you’ll notice your trackpad starting to behave. :slight_smile:

17

Oh! I apologize I totally forgot a necessary step:

  1. In terminal:
sudo chmod +x ~/.kde4/Autostart/mouse.sh
18

I had this problem also – installed and ran gsynaptics and all is well!

I normally love tough troubleshooting – but I’m too busy lately and have begun to fall into the simple solution lover’s camp.