Disable Synaptics Touchpad March 24, 2006
Posted by Carthik in guides, ubuntu.trackback
Update: To learn how to disable the touchpad temporarily when you are typing, read this other recent article.
I needed a quick way to disable and enable my synaptics touchpad at will, and I found one.
Make sure that in you /etc/X11/xorg.conf file, you have:
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad"
Driver "synaptics"
Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
Option "HorizScrollDelta" "0"
Option "SHMConfig" "on"
EndSection
Notice the Option “SHMConfig” “on” line — that is the one that you really need to have in there. This allows you to change some configuration parameters for the synaptics touchpad without restarting Xorg (Xserver).
Now that is taken care of.
All you have to do to disable your synaptics touchpad is to execute the command:
$synclient TouchpadOff=1
and to turn it back on, you can execute the command
$synclient TouchpadOff=0
TIP: To make it even easier to turn the touchpad on and off, you can set a keyboard shortcut and bind the shortcuts to the command to turn it on, and off, and use the keyboard shortcuts.
Thanks, I may try this. I don’t know that I have a “synaptics touchpad” .. but I have a touchpad and a “rock” button on my laptop….do you know of a way to enable the rock button?? (in windows, I set it page up/down and its kinda handy)
Great tip, the Synaptics touch pad has been bothering me for some time; it’s very easy to accidently brush it or one of its click buttons while typing. Having it turned off makes my life alot easier.
[Make sure that in you /etc/X11/xorg.conf file, you have]
should read
Make sure that in your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file, you have
Just a typo.
nola, take a look at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MultimediaKeys (for gnome) or https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KDEMultimediaKeys
The buttons *should* operate as multimedia keys. If neither of those work, you could take a look at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ManyButtonsMouseHowto, ttps://wiki.ubuntu.com/IntellimouseMousemanBackForwardButtons and https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MX1000Mouse as the buttons may be ‘mouse buttons’ so they may help.
I’d sure like to see a way to turn on the palm check on the synaptics touchpad. as it is, Ubuntu is almost unusable on this HP dv-1000.
I’m on a Dell Latitude D600. I tried the above procedure, and it ends up disabling the “pencil eraser” mouse in the keyboard, but the touchpad still works. Any ideas?
fix palm: open console, type synclient -l… and every option available there you can tweak inside your xorg.conf.
Having the same problem as Nick but on a D610. I’ve tried everything I can think of. I would like to keep the trackpoint active and disable the touchpad, but it happens just the opposite. I’ve fiddled with /etc/X11/xorg.conf and tried different protocol and driver settings on the Synaptics section, and added another section for the TrackPoint, but that didn’t help either…
[...] The Ubuntu blog over at wordpress.com plus a number of forum posts got me to where I needed to be. While I still don’t have gsynaptics working, there is a way to turn the touchpad off from the command line. [...]
Hi,
Just installed ubuntu, and i have a synaptics touch pad and nob in the keyboard on my laptop. The nob thing has a problem that causes the mouse to wander around the screen (happens in windows too). In windows i just disable the nob but leave on the touchpad. Any ideas as to how i can do this please?
Matt, the trackpoint device can be turned off my editing your /etc/X11/xorg.conf.
Since I don’t have a Thinkpad handy, all I can tell you is to look in that file, and comment out, or delete the lines that configure that mouse pointer, as also the lines that define using it as a device. Get your hands on someone even vaguely familiar with tweaking xorg.conf, or ask at the ubuntu forums, where other IBM users might be able to help you better.
Howdy all.
First time posting a comment on here, but would like to say that this blog is fantastic. Lots of interesting tips with lots of detail.
Anyway, to the point. I discovered that there are lots of settings you can change with the qsynaptics package.
All you have to do is make sure that the SHMConfig option is there in the xorg.conf file and then “sudo apt-get install qsynaptics”.
After that, each user can specify their own settings for various features of the trackpad.
The settings can be reloaded at logon by adding “qsynaptics -r” to the list of programs to be run at logon in System–>Preferences->Sessions.
One thing that I think might be useful, judging by the posts above, is the ability to have the track pad disabled while typing. I used to HATE not having that feature as I would always accidentally “click” somewhere else and end up typing in the wrong place.
Hope this helps somewhat!
[...] http://ubuntu.wordpress.com/2006/03/24/disable-synaptics-touchpad/ [...]
Okay fine I admit it.. I’ve had Ubuntu for a few hours. How do I open and edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf
there is also syndaemon which will disable the touchpad while you’re typing and then reenable it after xseconds when you’re done.
I would also recommend buying laptops with disable touchpad button. It is possible to disable/enable touchpad on my Acer TM2420 with Fn+F7. It’s really nice
On my previous laptop I used to use the software solution as suggested above.
The fixed width of this site causes important info to be cut off in code samples. For example, when I look at the 2nd example,
Section “InputDevice”
Identifier “Synaptics Touchpad”
Driver “synaptics”
Option “SendCoreEvents” “true”
Option “Device” “/dev/psaux”
Option “Protocol” “auto-dev”
Option “HorizScrollDelta” “0″
Option “SHMConfig” “on”
EndSection
the third column is entirely missing
After inserting “SHMConfig” “on” line and trying to disable by typing $synclient TouchpadOff=1, I get this error:
Can’t access shared memory area. SHMConfig disabled?
hi rohit, you need to reboot first before issueing the command
Hi,
where shall i write $synclient TouchpadOff=1 ? inside inputdevice section?
Hey Legolas,
Thanks for the answer. However, I need to type in the command after each reboot; because it turns on somehow. Am I missing something?
Foster, you need to type the command in the terminal; and not in the inputdevice section
[...] Earlier, I wrote about how to enable/disable your touchpad using the synclient command. [...]
rohit:
Noting Shiv’s advice earlier, I just added the line
synclient TouchpadOff=1
in the ’startup programs’ tab at System–>Preferences->Sessions
… and it worked great. Now my touchpad is automatically disabled after logon.
I am also having a problem with my synaptic touchpad on an Alienware m7700. None of the above seems to fix the problem. I prefer to use my Logitech USB mouse. I would prefer to not have the touch pad on at all. In fact, even without the mouse attached it is hyper sensitive. I am having trouble just writing even this. According to:
http://web.telia.com/~u89404340/touchpad/trouble-shooting.txt
I seem to be having a binary compatibility issue as the log file says nothing about the synaptic driver being loading.
SHM config will not work because of the shared memory message.
What can I do to disable the touchpad entirely. I can’t find a location in the BIOS to do it.
Some folks might prefer to change the TapButton1 setting instead. Setting TapButton1=0 will disable the “button” function from the tap-pad. This way, and inadvertent tap of the pad will not disrupt your work when you are in the midst of typing, but you will still be able to move the mouse using the touch pad. A much better setting in my humble opinion.
$ synclient TapButton1=0
To see your current settings, just type synclient -l.
Thank you for posting this tip on your blog. I’ve been googling for this fix on and off all year, and yours came up tops. I can now turn off the finicky touch pad on my Latitude C640 when it interrupts my work. Cheers!
With Dapper Drake I had no problems with setting and resetting my TouchpadOff parameter. However, ever since I upgraded to Edgy Eft, it seems that no matter what parameter I put in, no changes. Is there anything else extra that needs to be done with this new version?
Thank you.
Thanks Carthik and all especially bryan (23) and no thanks (25) - the tap on my Dell Inspiron 2200 pad (even the hand rest!) was becoming infuriating - now resolved!
If anyone is having trouble with Synaptics and using Dell Laptop, you might want to use this link to update driver. http://support.us.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=gen&releaseid=R35319&formatcnt=1&libid=0&fileid=39364Use the “touch” tab in settings>control panel>mouse and check the disable touchpad. I was trying to help a friend over the phone with this problem and decided to use my own service tag on dell.com to look up the driver for the touchpad. Hope this helps.
Now, I’ve done it! I’ve entered the stuff into my xorg.conf file, restarted X, rebooted and still I get the SHMConfg Shared memory error described above. It won’t work. Weirder still now when I log in it tells me my computer name needs to be entered in /etc/hosts (it is!) and the internet is taking forever to find any web page. I can’t see any connection. Also, all my font sizes have turned into teeny tiny 9 point. Now I am also getting a message on log in about having no administration rights and I can’t save anything, or something to that effect. Any ideas?
i have the same problem as donaldduck, i;ve enabled everything but it still get SHMConfig disabled? when i try to run the syndaemon
all you need to do on a thinkpad is to use FN+F8
Great, thanks many times, it really works. How did ya explore that?
I’ve just added
Option “SHMConfig”
to xorg.confm without the word “on” (did not see it in your window). And it works…
I also faced issue using this command on edgy.
However I found a workaround. After running the command “synclient TouchpadOff=1″, I restarted X (by using the ctrl+alt+backspace key combination). After that Touchpad was disabled.
Any clues how to work without this workaound?
Try running syndaemon: http://www.debuntu.org/2006/06/25/70-how-to-disabling-your-touchpad-while-typing
Well,
I have a Fujitsu Lifebook (c-series) with touchpad. And for the life of me, I cant get the middle up/down rocker button to work.
I have tried all combinations of SHMConfig, as in, SHMConfig on, true and without the on and true, in vain.
I tried gsynaptics, which complains that SHMConfig must be set to true (which ironically is) and qsynaptics, which complains that the Shared Memory is not accessible, and to turn SHMConfig on.
Is there something I am missing?
Please advice. I had this problem since installing Dapper in Aug and Edgy in Dec.
Thank you so much. All I needed to know was Fn+F7 (I have an Acer notebook) - I must have hit those keys by mistake and disabled the mousepad - now I know I can easily turn it off and on at will.
Thanks for the help, I’m a recent Ubuntu user, I was able to quickly edit (once I figure out the case sensitive nature i.e X11, not x11) the xorg.conf file and add the “SMHConif” “on” entry (for any other newbies I have a synaptic touch pad, and at least from what I took from the intial write up, this was NOT in my orginal .conf file). After this edit, I ran the $synclient TouchpadOff=1 command and turned the touch paf off, BUT THIS ALSO DISABLED THE POINT STICK MOUSE BUTTONS (both left and right). I also had read about the program gsynaptic, which I found and installed in the multiverse, so I installed this. It is supposed to add a GUI accessed though System>Prefferences>Touchpad, but while this installed, I can’t find the prog. anywhere? Thanks for any help or thoguhts!
if you need to add the inputdevice in xorg.conf, also make sure it’s added to the serverlayout, otherwise xorg will not load the driver….
just install ksynaptics it’s a hell of a program, it disable the touchpad with 1 click!
folks !! You’ve saved my life !! was installing, uninstalling and getting mad of my comp for 4 1/2 hours and after i’ve resigned just googled a bit and fond this site & handled my probem within 10 minutes!! tahnks soooo sooo sooo sooo much !!
[...] zum Touchpad. Die entscheidende Hilfe war das Ubuntu-Blog: Um das Touchpad zu deaktiveren benötigt man folgenden Eintrag innerhalb der [...]
[...] Disable Synaptics Touchpad « Ubuntu Blog disable touchpad in ubuntu linux (tags: linux ubuntu laptop howto) [...]
InputDevice “Synaptics Touchpad”
I do not have above in my xorg.conf file….Can I add it?
Regarding #26 Molovoch, turning off TouchPad on Dell Latitude c640. By going into setup (hit f2 at bootup and before OS takes over) you can move to page 3 and under “pointing device” select the option “PS2 Mouse”. This tells the Laptop to respond to a mouse if plugged into the PS2 port or to the Touch Pad if no mouse attached.
I went everywhere trying to find solution before coming to this easy setting. Late but hope it helps others.
Fn + F7 on an Acer Travelmate, silly me!! (Also see # 38 by Fandam7.)
Just spent hours trying to configure my Synaptics touchpad - installing and removing configuring apps. Was just about to use the commands given at the start of this blog, and assign shortcut keys when I noticed the blue ‘finger and hand on pad’ symbol under F7 !!
Sometimes the solution is so simple and right under your nose !!
I suggest looking carefully at your function keys/keyboard before assuming that more high-tech solutions are needed. (Or assuming that these functions wouldn’t work in Linux)
Would have saved me a lot of time and frustration!
Gee I am dumb. Pretty dumb!
I’ve been tweaking with xorg.conf and following a thousand recipes that did not produce any effect other than depressing me.
So, if like me, you are running Ubuntu Edgy Eft on top of a Acer Aspire 3680, all you need to enable the touchpad is to press FN+F7. (FN is that key right aside the button with windows logo).
Also see: #47 Gavin and #38 by Fandam7.
Just that. Many thanks to the community.
Thanks for that!
adding:
“SHMConfig” “on”
to my xorg.conf file did the trick.
My laptop: Dell 6400
Awesome, that p-ed me off for a long time. You rock!
Cheers,
Taivo
thanks a lot ive added these two binds to my keys file at ~/.fluxbox/
Mod4 o :exec synclient TouchpadOff=0
Mod4 f :exec synclient TouchpadOff=1
works like a charm
I have a Dell latitude C640 and most of the time have the touchpad tap button function turned off using this this method:
- Create a new text file called disable.sh
- In this file type any commands you want to run at startup as if they were in the console i.e “synclient TapButton1=0″ is all mine says
- Make it executable using “sudo chmod a+x disable.sh”
- copy this file to /home/yourname/.kde/Autostart/
This should now run he script every time KDE starts.
I have little experience in gnome but there is probably some similar directory! This will make the command run at startup and you dont have to play with system files etc, just delete disable.sh from the Autostart folder if you dont want it any more
Well, Ubuntu has a lot of meaning in Bantu speaking people. The Baganda people in Central Uganda use “Buntu” for many things for example,”Obuntu bulamu” which means the following: Decency, Politeness, graciousness or simply put a person with moral value. The Baganda call a person -Muntu, things- Bintu and many people are called- Bantu also their first king was called Kintu.
Thankyou Kasolo Kimuli David. People working together so as to raise the state of all beings is a beautiful thing to behold!
These mailing lists are places where people routinely help one another without thought of monetary reward. It is inspiring.
GNU/Linux/Debian/Ubuntu et al have significance far beyond the world of computers. They has conclusively shown that people motivated by a sincere desire to do good more than harm can deliver the very best in ultra sophisticated stable software. If they can do better than the corporate meat-grinders in such a complex and (to many) daunting field then surely there can be few fields where they would fail to do better. For me it is much more than brilliant S/W, so enjoyable and rewarding to use. GNU/Linux/Debian/Ubuntu et al are a shining beacon of hope illuminating an otherwise scary landscape of fear and distrust.
May you all speedily acheive a state of perfect grace and peace! :0)
Hello everyone and thanks for this howto. I would like the two commands (synclient TouchpadOff=1 and synclient TouchpadOff=0) to be executed automatically when plugging/unplugging mouse. I found out how to disable touchpad when plugging mouse (System -> Preferences -> Removable Drives and media -> Input devices -> Mice -> Automatically run command …). Any idea about enabling touchpad when mouse is being unplugged? Thanks.
And one more remark: those commands are completely independent with the Fn+F7 shortcut keys on my Acer.
you can disable the touchpad without editing any aspects of a file. All you have to is that the HP TouchPads all use the driver Synaptics from http://www.synaptics.com and all you have do is download that driver from there for your operation system and then install it. Then go to Control Panel and double click Synaptics and click tapping and uncheck the box to disable the tapping on touchpad and or to leave it checked off that will allow the pad to be used as a left mouse click when you tap there.
All you have to do is get the right driver for HP TouchPad and all you have to do is visit http://www.synaptics.com and download your driver for free.
cheers
thank you. This blog was very useful.
Romes that would with my dell. So I’m going to try to do that on the other computer, Just update the drivers and see if there’s an option for that.
try this software:http://www.kingzm.com/eng/files/download/MouseManager.zip
This software is designed for these people who use several mouse.
For example, a person uses notebook PC and installed USB mouse as well.
it can set the different work state for each mouse and quickly switch primary and secondary buttons .
I also had the wandering cursor problem, although it wasnt wandering, it was racing for a corner and wouldnt come out. on top of that i had the shared memory error. i ended up adding the following to the device and it now seems to do nothing at all, which is what i wanted.
Option “MinSpeed” “0.1″
Option “MaxSpeed” “0.1″
Option “AccelFactor” “0.1″
Hi
I changed the xorg.config but when I write $synclient Touchpadoff=1 I get the response bas: Touchpadoff=1″ command not found.
Any suggestions? Thanks
I have the same problem as Bill - bash: TouchpadOff=1: command not found
Boys, I’m sorry but the message says that you must pass the command “TouchpadOff=1″ not as itself; in the bash prompt type both instructions:
synclient TouchpadOff=1
Don’t type just the second part. type both.
[...] read the article and comment 25 at http://ubuntu.wordpress.com/2006/03/24/disable-synaptics-touchpad/ [...]
hi everybody,
although I’ve got “SHMconfig=on” in the xorg-file (already booted) I still receive “cant access shared memory area” both on the command line and using “ksynaptics”, a KDE-tool
katibin, try the following:
1 - Edit your /etc/X11/xorg.conf and find the the section “InputDevice” having Indentifier “Synaptics Touchpad” and put the following:
Section “InputDevice”
Identifier “Synaptics Touchpad”
Driver “synaptics”
Option “SendCoreEvents” “true”
Option “Device” “/dev/psaux”
Option “Protocol” “auto-dev”
Option “HorizScrollDelta” “0″
Option “SHMConfig” “on”
EndSection
2- Restart your machine
3- After you have restarted your machine, open a terminal console and run the following command:
synclient TouchpadOff=1
that’s it. Let’s see how that works.
I can’t find any section in /etc/X11/xorg.conf where it reads “Synaptics Touchpad”. Then what do I do? My touchpad works fine, but I want to turn on SHMConfig.
I can’t find any section in /etc/X11/xorg.conf where it reads “Synaptics Touchpad”. Then what do I do? My touchpad works fine, but I want to turn on SHMConfig.
Found the answer myself
Seems like I needed to regenerate the file after my last upgrade. This command will do this automatically (note: backup the xorg.conf file before you do this!):
sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg
The touchpad now works like a charm!
Yesterday, I read this entire blog and tried everything here. Nothing has worked for my Ubuntu 7.10 to disable my touchpad.
Now I’m on day 2 trying to disable the touchpad.
I still get “Can’t access shared memory area. SHMConfig disabled?” when I try the command synclient TouchpadOff=1; no matter what I do to the xorg.conf file, the touchpad continues to work; and Gsynaptics says “couldn’t initialize, you have to set SHMconfig ‘true’ in xorg.conf.
If anyone has any more info, I would appreciate it. Thanks
I have the same problem on my Thinkpad with
Ubuntu 7.10 as mentioned above. I also tried all that was posted
here to fix the problem, but without success: the message “…SHMConfig disabled?” still appears and the special key, to swicht off the touchpad doesn’t work.
I would be also thankfull for any advise.
maybe the following command from Bjorn can help you:
sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg
Here’s a little BASH script I wrote to check to toggle on/off the TapButton1 function. It can easily be altered to enable the entire touch pad by replacing all of the ‘TapButton1′ with ‘TouchpadOff’.
#!/bin/bash
if [ $(synclient -l | grep TapButton1 | awk -F ' ' '{print $3}') == "1" ]
then
synclient TapButton1=0
else
synclient TapButton1=1
fi
Hi
I have an Acer Aspire 5630
I run Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy. After going trough hoops, and editing
my xorg.conf file, I finally found the thing.
Just hit Fn+F7. Now this works for this computer. But if you investigate this, you may find that there is a smilar shortcut on most Laptops.
Forget the synclient stuff, y’all are making things too complicated. Add the touchpad section to xorg.conf as mentioned in this post, but add the following two lines inside it:
Option “MaxTapTime” “0″
Option “MaxTapMove” “0″
Sweet, no more tapping.
[...] Disable Synaptics Touchpad « Ubuntu Blog [...]
Hi guys, read through all above info. but none of it applies to me!
I have an Advent 7082 and the touch pad does not respond i.e. no screen cursor; could I have accidently locked it or is it a fault which will need a referral?
Thanks for any tips and Happy New Year to you all!
[...] Section “InputDevice” Identifier “Synaptics Touchpad” Driver “synaptics” Option “SendCoreEvents” “true” Option “Device” “/dev/psaux” Option “Protocol” “auto-dev” Option “HorizEdgeScroll” “0″ Option “SHMConfig” “on” EndSection http://ubuntu.wordpress.com/2006/03/24/disable-synaptics-touchpad/ [...]
Sweet - thanks. I just made the switch from a Windows XP to Ubuntu preloaded on a Dell Inspiron 1525. At the top of my “concerns” list was the ability to continue using the Logitech Trackman, which I’ve used so long, I can’t use any other pointing device. Out of the box everthing worked great, including my trackman (uses a USB connection) … but that little anoyance that the touchpad enabled makes (duh, its part of the wrist-rest). Problem solved.