Disable Touchpad!

English Hardware
1

Hi everyone, I’m new to the forums and OpenSuse. I would like to know how to disable my touchpad on my Dell Inspiron N5030? I’m using the gnome edition of OpenSuse.

2

Hi
You should be able to do that via the Control Center either under
Touchpad or Mouse settings.

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 11.4 (x86_64) Kernel 2.6.37.6-0.5-desktop
up 15:45, 3 users, load average: 0.18, 0.13, 0.10
GPU GeForce 8600 GTS Silent - Driver Version: 270.41.19

3

On 08/01/2011 06:32 AM, malcolmlewis wrote:
>
> You should be able to do that via the Control Center either under
> Touchpad or Mouse settings.

and maybe by using a key combo with the Fn key…check Dell’s
user/quick start guide that came with your Inspiron…

–
DD
openSUSE®, the “German Engineered Automobiles” of operating systems!

4

Here is my experience with a Dell N5010.

1: The touchpad driver sometimes fails to recognize the touchpad. When that happens, the touchpad still functions as if it were a generic mouse, but touchpad settings are ignored. Rebooting might fix this.

I am experimenting with opensuse 12.1, milestone 3. The touchpad is always recognized there. So there is hope for the future.

2: In Gnome, the control center settings do turn off the touchpad. They seem to turn it off for all desktops, maybe for all users.

3: In Gnome 3, those settings seem to be missing. There are touchpad settings, but they are less extensive.

4: The Fn key combo (Fn F13 on my system) does work in Gnome to turn the touchpad on or off. The Fn key combo does not seem to work in other desktops (KDE, XFCE, LXDE). If I turn the touchpad off with the Fn key combo, logout of gnome, log back into gnome, it is still turned off. If I logout of gnome and login to XFCE, it is not turned off.

5: In KDE, there is a marvelous option. You can set the touchpad to be disabled whenever another mouse (USB mouse or bluetooth mouse) is recognized. Unfortunately, that does not work when the touchpad driver fails to properly recognize the touchpad, but there is hope in 12.1M3. In fact, this is a major reason why I am preferring KDE. However, if I used the Fn key combo in Gnome to disable the touchpad there, this setting no longer works in KDE.

I’m can’t guess how your N5030 will behave. But if it is like my N5010, then you will find it frustrating.

5

Hi
Fire up dconf-editor org->gnome->settings-daemon->peripherals->touchpad
uncheck the touchpad-enabled box…

Or from the command line;


gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.peripherals.touchpad touchpad-enabled false

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 11.4 (x86_64) Kernel 2.6.37.6-0.5-desktop
up 23:50, 3 users, load average: 0.18, 0.25, 0.27
GPU GeForce 8600 GTS Silent - Driver Version: 270.41.19

6

Thank you all for your help, i will try these suggestions.

7

I’ve tried everything so far nothing! :\ Malcolm how do I fire up dconf-editor org->gnome->settings-daemon->peripherals->touchpad
uncheck the touchpad-enabled box… I don’t know how?

8

Hi
That’s specific to GNOME 3.0, if you have done a standard GNOME install, it will be 2.x so not applicable.

So you tried all the options in post #4?

Is there a BIOS option to disable?

9

I am using Gnome 3, so how do I do it, please? There is no bios option I checked.

10

i found dconf editor, there is no peripherals, but i found a keybindings that has a touchpad in it, it has a touchpadtoggle entry in it, it says it is to turn the touch pad on or off but i don’t know how to do it?

11

Hi
You need to install dconf-editor,


zypper in dconf-editor

But may be easier to run the command line as your user;


gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.peripherals.touchpad touchpad-enabled false

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 11.4 (x86_64) Kernel 2.6.37.6-0.5-desktop
up 2 days 2:18, 3 users, load average: 0.09, 0.12, 0.13
GPU GeForce 8600 GTS Silent - Driver Version: 270.41.19