On Monday 08 December 2008, Tim wrote: >On Sun, 2008-12-07 at 20:46 -0500, Gene Heskett wrote: >> I do my best to keep my thumbs away from that SOB, even using a >> finger to tap the space bar when I'm composing an email, only to have >> it do something off the wall cuz a finger or thumb got too close to >> it. > >Mine does that, too, and it's bloody annoying. In prior releases I >managed to EASILY disable touchpad tapping without disabling other >touchpad features, and that solved the problem. For Fedora 9, I >couldn't do so easily. Installing the obvious package to control >(gsynaptics, since I use Gnome) it refused to do anything. The >information about how to enable the package was lacking in useful >details, i.e. *where* to put the extra settings into the xorg.conf file >to get the SHMConfig enabling option to actually work. > >After making a bugzilla entry, which got cancelled for not really being >a bug (I'm in two minds about that, because the package doesn't install >itself in an operational way, and didn't provide enough information for >you to manually enable it without the use of undocumented knowledge), I >was left with information (on the final bugzilla entry) about how to >disable my touchpad: > > 1. Reference the touchpad by adding "InputDevice "Synaptics Touchpad"" > to the ServerLayout section. > >Which will allow me to use the gsynaptics program to twiddle my touchpad >settings at will, and it's what I've done. But from time to time, in >the middle of using the computer, it fails, and suddenly the mouse >pointer has done something that it shouldn't do. Moments later, it's >disabled again. And no amount of trying to abuse the touchpad will make >it fail. > > 2. Add the options to the > /usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/20thirdparty/10-synaptics.fdi file. This > way you don't need an xorg.conf entry for the touchpad at all. Add > each option in the form of > <merge key="input.x11_options.TapButton1" type="string">0</merge> > to the respective section (info.product is Synaptics Touchpad in your > case) > >But this would completely disable it for all users, with no way for a >particular user to enable it, and I didn't like that idea. > >My BIOS gives me options to have the touchpad working or not working, >with no auto-disable option. It's a laptop, I might need to use the >touchpad when I'm mobile, but I generally prefer to use a mouse, and it >can be handy for page scrolling without scrabbling for the mouse. An >auto-disable when there's a mouse would be perfect for me, but I can't >see a way to do it on Linux. > Neither can I. Thanks Tim, the next time I fire that puppy up I'll try and remember this message and apply it. But it bugs me no end that TPTB don't understand just how big a PITA this is. I'm with you, in that plugging in a regular mouse really should automatically disable that P.O.S. >-- >[tim@localhost ~]$ uname -r >2.6.27.5-41.fc9.i686 > >Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored. I >read messages from the public lists. -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) A possum must be himself, and being himself he is honest. -- Walt Kelly -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate/MailingListGuidelines
