Ubuntu – Synaptics touchpad tap-to-click is not working in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Gnome)

gnometap-to-clicktouchpad

I upgraded my ubuntu gnome installation to 16.04.3 LTS (GNOME) and everything is kinda good except for the touchpad single-tap functionality. Single-tap-to-click is not working.

Edit (by cipricus – in order to avoid creating a duplicate question): not only is it not working, but the setting presented in Gnome Help here (Open the Activities overview and start typing Mouse & Touchpad. – Click on Mouse & Touchpad to open the panel. –
In the Touchpad section, check Tap to click.) is not applicable in Ubuntu Gnome 16.04, as the Touchpad section is simply absent there:

enter image description here

How come? I know this is already answered, but why is the Touchpad section absent? I will add a bounty for this.

Best Answer

I've found a permanent solution with this command

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.touchpad tap-to-click true

Gnome starting at 3.20 only allows configuring devices using the libinput driver. So if you are not using the libinput driver, it won't show up in the GUI.

Comment from discussion gnome 3.22 still does not detect tap to click?.

Additionally, GNOME may override certain behaviors, like turning off Tapping and forcing Natural Scrolling. In this case the settings must be adapted using GNOMEs gsettings command line tool or a graphical frontend of your choice. For example if you wish to enable Tapping and disable Natural Scrolling for your user, adjust the touchpad key-values like the following:

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.touchpad tap-to-click true

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Libinput#Touchpad_not_working_in_GNOME

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