Q4OS Forum

allen04084

Member

Registered: 2020-06-03

Posts: 10

3.11 32 bit - How do I defeat my laptop touchpad??

New to q4OS. I'm sure I missed something, so, bear with me: how do I completely defeat my touchpad on my Dell D620 laptop? When typing I brush up against it all the time and get supremely annoyed at the mess I create when I  do that! Can't find where to defeat it in the gui. Any configs I can poke?? Please help!!! Thanks in advance! ps -really like the OS .

bin

Member

From: U.K.

Registered: 2016-01-28

Posts: 1,296

Re: 3.11 32 bit - How do I defeat my laptop touchpad??

I know exactly what you mean - drives my wife nuts!

I don't know if the D620 has Synaptics or ALPS pad - but these 2 may be of help
https://askubuntu.com/questions/67718/h … mmand-line
http://www.imega.cz/Linux-Alps-Touchpad … isable.php

I do remember trying the Synaptics solution - but in the end her old HP Pavilion turns out to have a tiny on/off switch for the trackpad - who knew.

Dai_trying

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2015-12-14

Posts: 2,989

Re: 3.11 32 bit - How do I defeat my laptop touchpad??

You could also try a solution I had to disable touchpad when using external mouse, might not be the best fit for your use case but might be worth looking at.

https://www.q4os.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=1083

allen04084

Member

Registered: 2020-06-03

Posts: 10

Re: 3.11 32 bit - How do I defeat my laptop touchpad??

Dai_trying - I installed your script successfully - it asked to install xinput, which I let it do, but it didn't disable my touchpad. I used the askubuntu xinput instructions from bin and those worked. I was able to determine my touchpad ID and disable the touchpad via xinput. Thanks to both of you!

Last edited by allen04084 (2020-06-22 18:38)

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Dai_trying

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2015-12-14

Posts: 2,989

Re: 3.11 32 bit - How do I defeat my laptop touchpad??

You're welcome

simeonov

Member

Registered: 2023-06-02

Posts: 7

Re: 3.11 32 bit - How do I defeat my laptop touchpad??

Here's how I did it on my Trinity desktop, pretty easy - by using the Startup dir and a file in /usr/local/bin - no advanced scripting, no crontabs nothing.

First, I went to terminal and created my executable file in /usr/local/bin (there, because I think executing from this directory makes it so the command is in SU mode - not sure, I'm not that advanced into linux, but it WORKS).

So you basically open up a terminal, and write in:

cs /usr/local/bin
sudo nano <filename> - let's say, sudo nano touchpad-off

then you input a couple simple commands in this file, like say if you wanna use xinput:

#!/bin/bash
# touchpad off
xinput --set-prop 17 "Device Enabled" 0
xinput --set-prop 18 "Device Enabled" 0
kdialog --msgbox "Touchpad and pointers disabled. Using USB mouse/kb instead"
exit

and if you wanna remove it completely with modprobe:

#!/bin/bash
# touchpad off
modprobe -r psmouse
kdialog --msgbox "Touchpad and pointers disabled. Using USB mouse/kb instead"
exit

Then you save your file, and once you exit nano, make it executable:
sudo chmod +x <filename>

After I created my file, I open up My computer from the start menu (Konqueror)
Then added this script in the TDE startup. You should Navigate to:
/home/<username/.q4data/Programs/Startup

Then you simply right-click in the folder and create an application link to the /usr/local/bin/touchpad-off file.
If you don't know how to do that, there's a tutorial on the forum (I can't post links, youll have to search for "q4os tde startup app" on google).

And this is it - everytime Trinity starts, the command runs automatically and gives you a little feedback message box that it ran successcully.
This helped very much with my laptop, cause its touchpad has been broken (probably previous owner dropped it or banged it and mouse the cursor kept moving on its own). So now you can easily use only USB mouse and kb.