Ubuntu – How to disable Elantech Touchpad while typing on Ubuntu 12.10

12.10elantechmousemulti-touchtouchpad

I have an Asus laptop (non zenbook) which I purchased last week. It has an Elantech Touchpad on it. Here's what's working:

Edge scrolling or Two Finger Scrolling.
Three finger and Two finger.
Left Click and Right Click and double tap.

The only thing keeping this from being perfect is that when I'm typing sometimes my palm hits the touchpad just right and then things get crazy. That can be a real bother when writing code.

Can someone help?

Here's the output of xinput list:

 Virtual core pointer                       id=2    [master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer                id=4    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ ETPS/2 Elantech Touchpad                  id=12   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                     id=3    [master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard               id=5    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                              id=6    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Video Bus                                 id=7    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Sleep Button                              id=8    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ ASUS USB2.0 Webcam                        id=9    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Asus WMI hotkeys                          id=10   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard              id=11   [slave  keyboard (3)]

output of: ps aux | grep syndaemon

jason 2911 0.0 0.0 20208 948 ? S Feb13 0:53 syndaemon -i 2.0 -K -R -t

jason 10256 0.0 0.0 13584 928 pts/2 S+ 14:18 0:00 grep syndaemon

Best Answer

I know it's not what you really want (completely automatic?), but there is an easy to make keyboard shortcuts to disable and enable the touchpad.

From your xinput list, the id for your touchpad is 12. Use this command to disable it:

xinput set-prop 12 "Device Enabled" 0

Use this to enable it:

xinput set-prop 12 "Device Enabled" 1

Bind these commands to your custom shortcuts (Keyboard / Shortcuts / Custom Shortcuts). Perhaps this can be made to a script?

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – How to get two finger scrolling working on an Acer S3 Elantech Touchpad

First off does the touch-pad support two finger scrolling? If so the result of synclient -l would be nice to edit

add the output of the command synclient -l.

Parameter settings:
    LeftEdge                = 1775
    RightEdge               = 5503
    TopEdge                 = 1652
    BottomEdge              = 4662
    FingerLow               = 24
    FingerHigh              = 29
    FingerPress             = 255
    MaxTapTime              = 180
    MaxTapMove              = 245
    MaxDoubleTapTime        = 180
    SingleTapTimeout        = 180
    ClickTime               = 100
    FastTaps                = 0
    EmulateMidButtonTime    = 75
    EmulateTwoFingerMinZ    = 10
    EmulateTwoFingerMinW    = 6
    VertScrollDelta         = 111
    HorizScrollDelta        = 111
    VertEdgeScroll          = 0
    HorizEdgeScroll         = 0
    CornerCoasting          = 0
    VertTwoFingerScroll     = 1
    HorizTwoFingerScroll    = 0
    MinSpeed                = 1
    MaxSpeed                = 1.75
    AccelFactor             = 0.0359131
    TrackstickSpeed         = 40
    EdgeMotionMinZ          = 29
    EdgeMotionMaxZ          = 159
    EdgeMotionMinSpeed      = 1
    EdgeMotionMaxSpeed      = 445
    EdgeMotionUseAlways     = 0
    TouchpadOff             = 0
    LockedDrags             = 0
    LockedDragTimeout       = 5000
    RTCornerButton          = 2
    RBCornerButton          = 3
    LTCornerButton          = 0
    LBCornerButton          = 0
    TapButton1              = 1
    TapButton2              = 3
    TapButton3              = 2
    ClickFinger1            = 1
    ClickFinger2            = 1
    ClickFinger3            = 1
    CircularScrolling       = 0
    CircScrollDelta         = 0.1
    CircScrollTrigger       = 0
    CircularPad             = 0
    PalmDetect              = 0
    PalmMinWidth            = 9
    PalmMinZ                = 199
    CoastingSpeed           = 20
    CoastingFriction        = 50
    PressureMotionMinZ      = 29
    PressureMotionMaxZ      = 159
    PressureMotionMinFactor = 1
    PressureMotionMaxFactor = 1
    ResolutionDetect        = 1
    GrabEventDevice         = 1
    TapAndDragGesture       = 1
    AreaLeftEdge            = 0
    AreaRightEdge           = 0
    AreaTopEdge             = 0
    AreaBottomEdge          = 0

You can change the setting of the synclient by adding to the startup application a new application with the following command:

xterm -e synclient "EmulateTwoFingerMinZ=10"

This would change the setting of EmulateTwoFingerMinZ to the value of 10

Found similar answer here: How to get two-finger scolling to work?

Ubuntu – Help trying to get two-finger scrolling to work on Asus UL80VT

To get your synclient settings to stick you can add them to xorg.conf. I did this recently for my macbook pro in 12.10 and it works pretty well.

You can also specify a separate configuration file in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ file to keep things neater. Here's a step by step:

Create /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d (if it doesn't already exist)

sudo mkdir /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d
Create and edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-synaptics.conf

gksudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-synaptics.conf

Make it look like the following:

#Sample /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-synaptics.conf
Section "InputClass"
  Identifier "touchpad catchall"
  Driver "synaptics"
  MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
  MatchIsTouchpad "true"
  Option  "SHMConfig"           "true"
  Option  "TapButton1"          "1"
  Option  "TapButton2"          "2"
  Option  "TapButton3"          "3"
EndSection

Save and logout/login again. If the xserver fails to load and you get forced into low graphics mode then edit the file again and comment everything out, or mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-synaptics.conf ~/10-synaptics.conf.backup and reload again to get back to normal.

For posterity, my current setup for my macbook pro 2012 13" is as follows (warning, I like my touchpad rather sensitive). Try any of these options using synclient before putting them into xorg.conf!

Section "InputClass"
      Identifier "touchpad catchall"
      Driver "synaptics"
      MatchIsTouchpad "on"
      MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
      MatchProduct "bcm5974"
      MatchIsTouchpad "true"
      Option  "SHMConfig"           "true"
      Option  "FastTaps"            "1"
      Option  "MaxDoubleTapTime"    "100"
      Option  "BottomEdge"          "6000"
      Option  "FingerLow"           "60"
      Option  "FingerHigh"          "90"
      Option         "ClickFinger3" "2"
#      Option         "FingerLow"             "30"
#      Option         "FingerHigh"            "80"
      Option         "VertTwoFingerScroll" "1"
      Option         "HorizTwoFingerScroll" "1"
      Option         "VertScrollDelta" "100"
      Option         "HorizScrollDelta" "100"
      Option         "MultiFingerButton" "2"
      #Option         "TapButton1" "1"
      Option         "TapButton2" "3"
      Option         "TapButton3" "2"
      Option         "MinSpeed" "1"
      Option         "MaxSpeed" "2"
      Option         "AccelFactor" "0.01"
#      Option         "AreaBottomEdge" "5000"
EndSection

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – How to get two finger scrolling working on an Acer S3 Elantech Touchpad

Ubuntu – Help trying to get two-finger scrolling to work on Asus UL80VT

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