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)

Just tried this and it’s working perfectly. Now I don’t have to always use an external mouse.

——-

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
6) Press Ctrl+X
7) “Do you want to save the unsaved changes to the buffer?” (or something similar)
Press Y and then Enter
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

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.

Other blogs on this subject go on for post after post, blah, blah, blah, but Alex go right to the point!