Automatic Disabling the Eee PC 1000 Touchpad

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Automatic Disabling the Eee PC 1000 Touchpad
The following information was developed using openSuSE 11.4 on an Eee PC 1000 40G netbook. It helps solve the problem of trying to type without hitting the Elantech touchpad. The distribution’s touchpad facilities will not disable the touchpad. The ‘touchpad’ script will disable the touchpad whenever the system detects an external mouse and re-enable it if the mouse is disconnected.

The ‘touchpad’ Script
#!/bin/bash

This is for openSuSE 11.4 running on an Eee PC 1000.

Danny E Turley

April 18, 2011

#---------------------------------------------------------------------

set -x

Get the ID of the touchpad.

XINPUTID=$(xinput list|grep -i touchpad|sed -e ‘s/.id=([0-9]).*/\1/’)
while :
do
# Is a mouse connected?
xinput list|grep -iq mouse
if $? -eq 0 ]; then # If yes, see if touchpad is enabled.
xinput list-props 14|grep “Device Enabled”|grep -Eq ‘1$’
if $? -eq 0 ]; then # If enabled, disable it.
xinput set-prop $XINPUTID “Device Enabled” 0
fi
else # If no mouse, see if touchpad is disabled.
xinput list-props 14|grep “Device Enabled”|grep -Eq ‘0$’
if $? -eq 0 ]; then # If disabled, enable it.
xinput set-prop $XINPUTID “Device Enabled” 1
fi
fi
sleep 5 # Wait, then check again.
Done

Installation

  1. Create the ‘touchpad’ file in either /usr/local/bin or /home/your_login/.kde4/Autostart.
  2. Make it executable. Enter: chmod +x touchpad
  3. If you created it in /usr/local/bin, link it into your Autostart directory.
    ln -s /usr/local/bin/touchpad ~/.kde4/Autostart/touchpad
  4. Restart the X server by logging off and back in or rebooting the machine.

Thanks to a lot of people on a lot of web sites for the education to create this!