Disabling touchpad on Dell Latitude with XFCE

[Oliver Ruebenacker]

     Hello,

On Mon, Nov 7, 2011 at 8:39 PM, Rick Stevens <ricks at nerd.com> wrote:
> On 11/07/2011 03:32 PM, suvayu ali wrote:
>> Hello Oliver,
>>
>> On Mon, Nov 7, 2011 at 23:45, Oliver Ruebenacker <curoli at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I got a new Dell Latitude laptop with a touchpad and installed a
>>> fresh F15-XFCE. The computer is difficult to use, because it is almost
>>> impossible to type anything without touching the touchpad, and the
>>> slightest touch will result in a unwanted and sometimes disastrous
>>> mouse click (in contrast with the mouse keys, which need to be pressed
>>> rather forcefully).
>>
>> I am not sure the gpointing-device-settings utility works any more. But
>> to disable "double tap to click", you can try this in a terminal.
>>
>> $ synclient TapButton1=0
>>
>> To get a list of all the options just type synclient.
>>
>> To execute this everytime you login to XFCE put it in
>> ~/.config/xfce4/xinitrc as a shell script.
>>
>> $ cat ~/.config/xfce4/xinitrc
>> #!/bin/sh
>> synclient TapButton1=0
>>
>> Hope this helps.
>
> May not, as not all Dells use a Synaptics touchpad.  My Dell Inspiron
> N7110 doesn't.  So, here's what I did:
>
> 1. Create "/usr/local/bin/flipdelltouchpad" containing the following
> shell script:
> ------------------------------ CUT HERE -----------------------------
> #!/bin/bash
> touchpadString="PS/2 Generic Mouse"
> touchpadID=$(xinput list | grep "$touchpadString" | awk -F " " '{print
> $6}' | awk -F "=" '{print $2}')
> touchpadEnabled=$(xinput list-props $touchpadID | grep "Device Enabled"
> | awk -F ":" '{print $2}')
>
> # Check for arguments on the command line
> if [ $# -eq 1 ]; then                   # Any arguments?
>    arg1=$(echo $1 | tr [:upper:] [:lower:])
>                                        # Yes, convert to lower case
>    cliArg=1                            # Set flag that we have one
> else                                    # There is no argument.
>    cliArg=0                            # Clear flag
> fi
>
> if [ $cliArg -eq 1 ]; then              # Did we get an argument?
>    if [ $arg1 = 'on' ]; then           # Yes, was it "on"?
>        xinput --set-prop $touchpadID "Device Enabled" 1
>                                        # Yes, enable the touchpad
>    elif [ $arg1 = 'off' ]; then        # No, was it "off"?
>        xinput --set-prop $touchpadID "Device Enabled" 0
>                                        # Yes, disable the touchpad
>    else                                # None of the above, so...
>        sleep 1                         # ...sleep one second, exit
>    fi
>
> else                                    # No argument, toggle state
>    if [ $touchpadEnabled -eq 1 ]; then # Enabled now?
>        xinput --set-prop $touchpadID "Device Enabled" 0
>                                        # Yes, so disable it
>    else                                # Must be disabled, so...
>        xinput --set-prop $touchpadID "Device Enabled" 1
>                                        # ...enable it
>    fi
> fi
> ------------------------------ CUT HERE -----------------------------
> (code borrowed from Brendan Dugan, give props where they're due).
>
> 2. Save the file and chmod it 755 so it can be executed.
>
> 3. Go into Applications->Keyboard and select the "Application Shortcuts"
> tab.
>
> 4. Add a new keystroke (I used Fn-F3 which will toggle the touchpad on
> and off under Winblows but is ignored in Xfce) and tell it to run that
> /usr/local/bin/dellfliptouchpad script when that key is hit.
>
> Then, when you hold down "Fn" and press "F3", the touchpad will toggle
> on and off.  The script also supports passing in an argument, too, so
>
>        /usr/local/bin/flipdelltouchpad on
>
> will enable the touchpad and
>
>        /usr/local/bin/flipdelltouchpad off
>
> will disable it.
>
> Note that on my Inspiron this does not turn the LED on and off, but
> that's a small price to pay.  I'll sort that out sometime, but for
> now I'm happy.

  Does that turn off all mouse function? I could make friends with
disabling the touchpad forever, but I would like to keep the mouse
stick (or whatever that little nob on my keyboard is called that moves
the mouse cursor if you push it).

  I have a Dell Latitude E6520. Ironically, I can't open the list of
specs from the Dell website in Firefox to find out what kind of
touchpad I have.

     Take care
     Oliver

-- 
Oliver Ruebenacker, Computational Cell Biologist
Virtual Cell (http://vcell.org)
SBPAX: Turning Bio Knowledge into Math Models (http://www.sbpax.org)
http://www.oliver.curiousworld.org