[update] Since gutsy, touchpad options have been included in the Touchpad tab of the Mouse preferences window. To find them, go to System > Preferences > Mouse, and then click on the “Touchpad” tab. You can then simply uncheck “Enable mouse clicks with touchpad.”
I don’t know if this bothers everyone, but I always seem to accidentally hit my touchpad when I’m typing, putting the cursor somewhere else while I’m still typing. This can be very frustrating. So I just turned off the tap-click “feature” of my Synaptics touchpad.
Before we start, it is important to make a backup of the file we are going to edit. If you make a mistake it is possible that your desktop environment will not start. So, open a terminal (Applications, Accessories, Terminal) and run the following command:
sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.backup_touchpad
If you do make a mistake and end up without a desktop environment (X won’t start) then simply hit ctrl+alt+F1 to get to a virtual terminal and run the following commands:
sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf.backup_touchpad /etc/X11/xorg.conf
sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart
You should probably write down the above commands if you don’t know what they mean.
Now that we’ve backed up the file, we can edit it:
sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Next find the Synaptics Touchpad Section. It will look something like this:
Section “InputDevice”
Identifier “Synaptics Touchpad”
Driver “synaptics”
Option “SendCoreEvents” “true”
Option “Device” “/dev/psaux”
Option “Protocol” “auto-dev”
EndSection
Simply add the following line before “EndSection” just like the other options:
Option "MaxTapTime" "0"
Save the file (Ctrl+S) and restart your X server by hitting Ctrl+Alt+Backspace, and tap-to-click should be disabled.
If you want to just make it less sensitive, increase the value from 0.
November 13, 2006 at 4:57 pm
Alex, thanks for the great tip. The touchpad was really getting to be a pain but your how-to fixed it. How do I force those settings every time I reboot? When I reboot I am forced to restart X for the touchpad settings to take effect again, Thanks in advance for any help you can give me.
November 25, 2006 at 3:11 pm
I really need this to work for me too, but strangely I have no sections in xorg.conf mentioning the touchpad. But the touchpad works nevertheless. It works too well!
I have the annoying Wacom-sections though. Could it be those that makes my touchpad work?
March 31, 2007 at 7:43 am
Worked great! Thanks!
October 13, 2007 at 8:17 pm
Sweet and easy
Thanks,works great
Other blogs on this subject go on for post after post, blah, blah, blah, but Alex go right to the point!
January 16, 2008 at 12:47 pm
thank you so much ive been wanting to try ubuntu for a while but it was so annoying not being able to configure the over sensitive click that i nevr had the patience to mess with it for long, thanx for ur post
February 3, 2008 at 9:21 am
I think you need to rewrite this for noobs, like me. I don’t even know how to get to the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file much less edit it. Heck, I’m not even sure how many files I can edit. All I know is, I hate touch screens, touch pads, and the like for the same reason: you barely touch them and they do crap. I prefer buttons, cause when you press ‘em, you know it.
When I first got my laptop, I loved the fact that it was the only one I’d ever used with out the stupid tap function; later it gets a system board problem, I take it to the shop, they think the mouse is broken too and now I’m clickin’ on all sorts of stuff I shouldn’t be!
I need a step-by step walkthrough. Help a brother out.
February 24, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Thank you very much for the tip! it works like a charm!
April 12, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Thanks for this clever hack Alex S
——-
Cappuccino Joe; Here’s a solution that will work on nearly any linux, but the downside is you’ll switch to a text-only environment – if this makes you uncomfortable, there are alternatives down the bottom, but they have different programs and methods between the different flavours of linux.
0) If you’re using this method, remember that you won’t be able to read this walkthrough from the computer you’re doing this from, so have a copy handy (even just in your memory, if that’s your thing).
1) Press Control+Alt+F1. This will bring up a command-line interface. Hopefully it’ll be a login screen
2) Login using your regular user/password
3) type exactly as follows, and don’t be alarmed that it’s asking for your login again. (note; you have to use a capital X for X11!)
sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.backup_touchpad
sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf
4) You should be in a text editor, scroll down to the
Section “InputDevice”
Identifier “Synaptics Touchpad”
Driver “synaptics”
Option “SendCoreEvents” “true”
Option “Device” “/dev/psaux”
Option “Protocol” “auto-dev”
EndSection
area – it should be there somewhere (if it isn’t, then you have a very odd touchpad!)
Go to the line above “EndSection”, press enter (to insert a new line)
5) Type out as follows:
Option “MaxTapTime” “0″
5b) feel free to line the text up with the bit above with tabs and whatnot, but it really doesn’t matter
Press Y and then Enter
6) Press Ctrl+X
7) “Do you want to save the unsaved changes to the buffer?” (or something similar)
9) Type
sudo poweroff
this will turn off your computer, when you turn it on the damn trackpad should finally be gone.
————
Alternative1: Control+Alt+F1 is just as good as Control+Alt+F2, or Control+Alt+F3 – you can go as high as 6 or 7 in most linux versions.
Alternative2: If you don’t like the idea of running completely without a graphical interface, there are many many terminal programs for the graphical interface – but herein lies the rub. There’s lots (and lots) of them, and you might not have the same one as me. In KDE it’s called Konsole. Some other terminal shells are:
xterm, dtterm, Eterm, GNOME Terminal, rxvt, mrxvt, wterm, SwitchTerm, TeemTalk , and aterm.
all of these will get the job done, and you won’t have to leave the gui!
If you’re using this method, replace step 9 with:
9) Press Control+Alt+Backspace. This will kill your graphical interface and leave you back at the login screen. TBH this is probably the better method than entirely restarting your computer..
Alternative3: nano is one of many many text editors. There are others around, but nano’s probably a good starter editor, and is on all the linux distro’s i’ve seen
.
Alternative4: For step 9:
if you aren’t keen on shutting your computer down entirely, there are 2 other options available. You can either switch back to the GUI by pressing Control+Alt+F8 (sometimes it’s Control+Alt+F7, if you can’t find it have a fish around the control+alt+f keys, it’s there somewhere ). Then, when you’re back in to your graphical interface, press Control+Alt+Backspace, this’ll boot you back out to the login screen, but the trackpad’s off now! Your other options available here is, instead of switching back to the graphical interface, type
sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart
sudo /etc/init.d/kdm restart
sudo /etc/init.d/xdm restart
This is tricky because 2 of these won’t work, (not everyone has the same graphical interface installed, but the important thing is that one of these will work and the other 2 won’t matter
). When you hit upon the right one it’ll switch you back to your GUI.
Note: If you somehow bork your GUI doing this (though it’s unlikely), it’s OK because it’s backed up. To get it back,
a) Press Control+Alt+F1
b) Log in
c) Type
sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf.backup_touchpad /etc/X11/xorg.conf
d) It might give you some guff about over-writing an existing file, go ahead anyway.
e) Start over
Sorry for the incredibly wordy post, I’ve tried to cover every aspect here
Linux is very option-happy.. gl
May 30, 2008 at 12:26 pm
I have tried this stuff and it makes no effect on my touchpad. Please see this post on the Ubuntu forums: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=5079473#post5079473. Mousetweaks pointer capture is the only software that will affect my pointer. Please help.
June 29, 2008 at 9:08 pm
This is something that always bugged me in ubuntu.
Just tried this and it’s working perfectly. Now I don’t have to always use an external mouse.
July 14, 2008 at 9:18 pm
[...] here and here’s a really detailed/commented xorg.conf for you to look at. They’re both a bit old, but [...]
March 7, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Alex, I was so excited to see your straightforward instructions… however, my xorg.conf only has sections for “Configured Video Device” and “Screen”. No “InputDevice”.
I’m using Intrepid — is this the problem? Also, I’m using gpm for some non-gnome purposes. Could this be getting in the way?
Thanks,
Alex(2)
April 15, 2009 at 11:18 am
Hey, nice tips. I’ll buy a bottle of beer to that man from that chat who told me to visit your blog