touchpad - how to turn off while typing

English Hardware
#1

I have a toshiba satellite, it has a ALPS touchpad. I would like to turn off the sensitivity when I am typing so that my big hands dont bump it and mess up my typing stream.

I have tried access to the control panel as well as YAST. Nothing seems to have a control for turning off the touchpad during typing.

Anyone know how to resolve this.

Here is some information:

59: PS/2 00.0: 10500 PS/2 Mouse
[Created at input.183]
UDI: /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/platform_i8042_i8042_AUX3_port_logicaldev_input_0
Unique ID: AH6Q.5+smWHVjPI3
Hardware Class: mouse
Model: “AlpsPS/2 ALPS GlidePoint”
Vendor: 0x0002
Device: 0x0008 “AlpsPS/2 ALPS GlidePoint”
Compatible to: int 0x0210 0x0003
Device File: /dev/input/mice (/dev/input/mouse1)
Device Files: /dev/input/mice, /dev/input/mouse1, /dev/input/event3, /dev/input/by-path/platform-i8042-serio-4-event-mouse, /dev/input/by-path/platform-i8042-serio-4-mouse
Device Number: char 13:63 (char 13:33)
Driver Info #0:
Buttons: 3
Wheels: 0
XFree86 Protocol: explorerps/2
GPM Protocol: exps2
Config Status: cfg=no, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown

#2

If you are running KDE, try this:

Disable - Enable Touchpad KDE-Apps.org

I have used it for a couple of years. Extract the file first. Then right click on it and select “Disable Touchpad”. It resets after each reboot, but otherwise works quite well.

#3

ok, thanks.
i ran the command and it works perfect.

i will download, cause its my wife that uses this machine and she dont get it.

actually, i would prefer to default with the pad off. anyone know how i can set it up to default off? and use this utility to turn it on if necessary?

please advise,
bam

#4

There is the tool called syndaemon which should disable touchpad while typing,
though I didn’t try it myself (I don’t have touchpad).

See
man syndaemon
Syndaemon - openSUSE Forums
HowTo: Disable Synaptics Touchpad While Typing - Ubuntu Forums
and google of course.

#5

To disable it at startup you can add the command

synclient TouchpadOff=1

as root to the end of the text file /etc/init.d/boot.local

The command will then run at each boot. Be sure to have a way to activate it back with the keyboard (a shortcut to synclient TouchpadOff=0, for example) in case you don’t have a mouse handy.

#6

yes, i want to set up a shortcut. how do I assign a keyboard shortcut with a command?

#7
  • bmccall17,

silly question maybe, but did you try Fn+F9? That worked fine back then with my Toshiba.

Uwe

#8

wow. that is one silly question!! It worked by the way.
i guess i assumed that the keyboard functions would need special drivers and such.

thank you for being a great community of suppot!!!
bam

#9

this works perfect in the boot.local. thank you!!!