Synaptics touchpad switches apps in an undesirable way

[Matthew Saltzman]

On Sat, 2010-01-16 at 18:22 +0100, Stefano Cavallari wrote: 
> On Saturday 16 January 2010 18:02:28 Wendell Nichols wrote:
> > I use Fedora on a thinkpad T61p.  Most things are good, but when I'm
> > away from my desk using it on my lap I find that many movements on the
> > touchpad cause the desktop to rapidly cycle through apps on the
> > desktop.  All of these are accidents but I just can't keep from
> > accidentally striking the scroll areas of the pad, and depending on
> > where the cursor is, madly switching desktops and apps.  So I'm
> > constantly having to reposition myself on the correct app and restore
> > hidden windows.
> > Is there any way to disable this behaviour?
> > I use fedora 10 and 11 with kde.
> > wcn
> > 
> check 
> $ man synclient
> and
> $ man synaptics
> I use KDE Autostart feature to launch a small scripts which sets the touchpad 
> for me
> for your case something like:
> 
> #!/bin/sh
> synclient VertEdgeScroll=0 HorizEdgeScroll=0
> (not tested)
> HTH,
> 	Stefano Cavallari

In GNOME, at least, the mouse configurator in System->Preferences has a
Touchpad tab with a checkbox for "disable touchpad while typing", which
runs syndaemon.  It also has checkboxes to enable and disable various
scrolling areas.  I don't know if KDE offers the same options.  If not,
also "man syndaemon".

-- 
                Matthew Saltzman

Clemson University Math Sciences
mjs AT clemson DOT edu
http://www.math.clemson.edu/~mjs