Ubuntu – Ubuntu GNOME 14.04 Disable Touchpad While Typing Not Working

14.04gnometouchpadubuntu-gnome

I am using Ubuntu GNOME 14.04.

The "disable touchpad while typing" setting in the system settings does not work.

Any permutation of the "syndaemon" command does not work.

It is really annoying, when I am typing all of a sudden the focus will be on a new window, or a large chunk of text will be gone, etc.

I am using a Dell Inspiron 14 5000 series laptop, no proprietary drivers being used.

I also tried installing Pointing Devices from the Software Center and disabling from there. Did not work either.

There's the answer to this question: Touchpad issue: jumping cursor while typing (Ubuntu 14.04), syndaemon don't help but I don't want to try recompiling drivers unless there is definitely no other solution. Also there's this: https://gist.github.com/silverhammermba/a231c8156ecaa63c86f1 but this also involves patching drivers (also not clear how to apply it).

How can I get this to work?

Best Answer

I know exactly what the problem is (at least in my case which seems identic). It's because you're missing librecord.so . The GNOME setting require this file because it use syndaemon with -R option. As far as I know, that file has been dropped and no longer shipped with xorg-server.

There are many hard way you can actually achive disable typing function. Here from the easiest :

Using syndaemon Directly

Just launch

    $ syndaemon -d

or with option you may like. See syndaemon -h.

Just remember, without -R switch.

Patch the GNOME settings daemon

  1. Download the source available at
  2. Apply the following patch : http://pastebin.com/1xHukxR0
  3. Compile or build the package.
  4. Install and Done!

NB : Sorry, I don't provide the exact step as I'm not Ubuntu user again.

Recompile xorg-server with XRECORD

Shortly, compile with --enable-record and possibly --disable-xtrap. Found here.

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