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How to disable touchpad in Xubuntu?

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Bengt T

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Nov 4, 2012, 7:45:56 AM11/4/12
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In HP Probook4525s and Opensuse 11.4 with Xfce, the touch-pad can be disabled inserting "synclient TouchpadOff=1" into the .xinitrc file.

This does however not seem to work in Xubuntu 12.

My question is where and how to accomplish touch-pad disabling in Xubunty?

bad sector

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Nov 4, 2012, 9:11:08 AM11/4/12
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Failing software, maybe in your bios?


Bengt T

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Nov 4, 2012, 9:46:53 AM11/4/12
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No, there in unfortunately no touch-pad setting possibility in BIOS.

kcGSH6nC

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Nov 4, 2012, 2:57:17 PM11/4/12
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Stick the synaptics module in a blacklist in modprobe.

Bengt T

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Nov 5, 2012, 3:01:07 AM11/5/12
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Can you elaborate on this please.

Bengt T

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Nov 6, 2012, 5:06:45 AM11/6/12
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Additional information:

I can issue the command "synclient TouchpadOff=1" in a terminal window resulting in a disabled touch-pad as long as the PC is on. However it does not, in Xubuntu, survive a restart (PC power off/on).

Whiskers

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Nov 6, 2012, 4:29:24 PM11/6/12
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If you're actually running Xfce, try going to the Xfce 'Settings - Mouse
and Touchpad' dialogue and unselecting 'Enable this device' for the
touchpad. (Xfce 4.10, Arch Linux, here).


--
-- ^^^^^^^^^^
-- Whiskers
-- ~~~~~~~~~~

kcGSH6nC

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Nov 6, 2012, 8:10:51 PM11/6/12
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Bengt T wrote:
> Can you elaborate on this please.
>

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modprobe#Blacklist

Basically you stick the kernel module into the blacklist and modprobe
will stop ever automatically loading that kernel module (you would have
to do it manually, using insmod)

If there's no kernel module for the synaptics touchpad, X shouldn't see it.

I believe this can be done by blacklisting 'psmouse' but that might be
overkill and prevent -any- mouse from working.

Bengt T

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Nov 7, 2012, 12:45:51 PM11/7/12
to Whiskers
On Tuesday, November 6, 2012 10:44:05 PM UTC+1, Whiskers wrote:
Many thanks! Your hint advised me to find where and how to disable the touch-pad in Xubuntu (with Xfce 4.8).

A strange observation I made is that Opensuse 11.8 (with Xfce 4.8.0) does only allow keyboard settings in the Settings Manager while Xubuntu 12 (with Xfce 4.8) allows both keyboard and touch-pad settings...

Anyway, my problem is solved.
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