Linux Opensuse - Acer Aspire 5349 disable touchpad mouse

English Hardware
1

Hi guys,

Pretty much I’ve just fished out an old laptop and installed OpenSuse on it, the problem is that the left and right mouse buttons on the touchpad keep sticking and causing me no end of grief, when I get round to it I’ll lift the mouse button and spray some canned air in there and that will probably fix it, for now though I just want to completely disable the mouse buttons and touchpad, could you please guide me through this?

I’ve got to System Settings > Touchpad and it says:

Hardware information: SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad and gives me a few options, there doesn’t seem to be an option to disable the touchpad though…

Thanks.
Bckc

2

For some reason you have ignored our request to include your openSUSE version and desktop info again, I do not understand why.

For openSUSE 12.3 & KDE:

Try the following:

menu / Configure Desktop / Hardware / Input Devices

What adjustments there are is located here, but I don’t see disable as an option.

Thank You,

3

To completely disable the touchpad, open a terminal, and type

synclient TouchpadOff=1
4

Must you do this on each openSUSE startup or does the setting stick?

Thank You,

5

It needs to be executed via autostart script to be effective on a permanent basis (but I was waiting for OP to announce their desktop environment before proceeding with any further advice).

6

So here is a bash script that could be used.

#!/bin/bash

#: Title       : tpc
#: Date Created: Sun Nov 17 12:39:53 CST 2013
#: Last Edit   : Sun Nov 17 12:39:53 CST 2013
#: Author      : James McDaniel
#: Version     : 1.00
#: Description : Touch Pad Enable/Disable
#: Options     : 0 to Enable & 1 to Disable

#
# This is the standard GPL Statement, leave at the top of the script.
# Just use the command show_gpl after this function for it to be shown.
#

function show_gpl {
echo ""
echo "tpc is a bash script file written to be used with openSUSE."
echo "Copyright (C) 2013 by James McDaniel, jmcdaniel3@austin.rr.com"
echo ""
echo "This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify"
echo "it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by"
echo "the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or"
echo "(at your option) any later version."
echo ""
echo "This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,"
echo "but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of"
echo "MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the"
echo "GNU General Public License for more details."
echo ""
echo "You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License"
echo "along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software"
echo "Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA"
echo ""
echo "synclient TouchpadOff=$1"
echo
}

if  "$HOME" != "/root" ] ; then
    echo "You must be root ..."
    sudo $0 $@
else
    clear
    show_gpl $1
fi

  if  "$1" != "" ] ; then 
    /usr/bin/synclient TouchpadOff=$1 > /dev/null  2>&1

  else 
  
    clear
    echo 
    echo "Required command line options are:"
    echo
    echo "$0 [0/1] where 0 will Enable Touchpad & 1 to Disable Touchpad"
    echo
    exit 1
  fi

  
exit 0

# End Of Script

I would place the script file tpc in the folder /usr/local/bin as root and mark it executable with the command:

sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/tpc

To disable the touchpad:

tpc 1

To enable the touchpad:

tpc 0

You could add this command to your /etc/init.d/after.local if you wish. See my blog on getting this script to run at startup in openSUSE:

systemd and using the after.local script in openSUSE 12.1 - Blogs - openSUSE ForumsThank You,