• From: Deep in The Swedish Woods
  • Registered: 2008-11-28
  • Posts: 578

Topic: How to make the touchpad turn off automatically when typing

A great idea that I found at the Linux Mint forum.
Original post here!

Husse at the Linux Mint Forum wrote:

I've been looking for a solution for this off and on for a long time - and now I found it
There's a handy little CLI tool called syndaemon that does this for you

syndaemon -d

Shuts off the touchpad when you type and enables it two seconds after the last keystroke
If you add -t you only disable tapping and scrolling, not mouse movement (Just for your info - mostly it's the movement you want to disable)
If you add -i 1 it's enabled after one second
To make syndaemon start automatically add the command to the "Startup Applications" (for Gnome)
Open the menu and type star and you see it
Click the add button and enter syndaemon -d and give it a name (Notouch perhaps?)
In KDE 4 (Gloria) it is Applications > System > System settings > the Advanced tab > Autostart
Click Add program and enter syndaemon -d
To make sure that it works you should enable SHMConfig
In all editions except main and KDE you have to install SHMConfig
For Gnome

gksudo gedit /etc/hal/fdi/policy/shmconfig.fdi

For KDE

kdesudo kate /etc/hal/fdi/policy/shmconfig.fdi

This brings up an empty file
Add the following to that file

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<deviceinfo version="0.2">
  <device>
    <match key="input.x11_driver" string="synaptics">
      <merge key="input.x11_options.SHMConfig" type="string">True</merge>
    </match>
  </device>
</deviceinfo>

Save, close the file and reboot and you should be done
Note - for versions earlier than Felicia (Mint 6) this is added to xorg.conf
In 
Section "InputDevice"
you add
Option          "SHMConfig"             "true"

Reference

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  • Awebb
  • #! Die-hard
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  • Registered: 2009-07-23
  • Posts: 2,478

Re: How to make the touchpad turn off automatically when typing

First of all, after writing my reply, I have to say thanks for giving us the information. The following may sound harsh, but I can assure you that I appreciate your work wink

So why do we use a policy just to end up starting up a daemon and editing the xorg.conf. hal policies are all about not having to edit the xorg.conf... In pre-hal ages, we simply added some options to xorg.conf and enjoyed  ourselves. I know, it's for old versions, but what's wrong with Option "PalmDetect" in your xorg.conf?

I see the benefits of hal, but why should we do everything the hal way, especially when it's more complicated than the classic way?

If you insist on hal, you might want to try 

<merge key="input.x11_options.PalmDetect" type="string">1</merge>

in a policy file.

Whatever you want to do with synaptics and an fdi policy, make sure to consult man synsptics.

Now you might say: "I can kill the daemon whenever I want."
How about sudo /etc/init.d/hal restart?

EDIT: Ok the benefit of the daemon is obvious: It's running userspace and you don't need to be root to change it. In addition, I'm not sure wether there are per user hal policies or not. But on the other hand, we can enable SHMConfig to let the user decide, no matter what the policy says, don't we?

Last edited by Awebb (2009-08-24 22:38:21)

I'm so meta, even this acronym
  • From: Deep in The Swedish Woods
  • Registered: 2008-11-28
  • Posts: 578

Re: How to make the touchpad turn off automatically when typing

Well true... roll
I merely added 

syndaemon -d &

to autostart.sh and it works fine... big_smile
I'm just glad I found it... big_smile

Last edited by Zwopper (2009-08-24 22:50:46)

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  • Registered: 2008-12-13
  • Posts: 1,480

Re: How to make the touchpad turn off automatically when typing

I believe in the newer releases of ubuntu those xorg settings are ignored and you have to set it with hal. I usually go the syndeamon route as well, just haven't set it up again yet. Thanks for the reminder Zwopper wink

I say never be complete, I say stop being perfect, I say lets evolve, let the chips fall where they may.
  • omns
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  • From: non-local
  • Registered: 2008-11-25
  • Posts: 4,406

Re: How to make the touchpad turn off automatically when typing

I'm not having any luck with this. syndaemon generates the following errors. Time to check out some of the launchpad bugs in relation to this.

X Error of failed request:  BadDevice, invalid or uninitialized input device
  Major opcode of failed request:  141 (XInputExtension)
  Minor opcode of failed request:  3 (X_OpenDevice)
  Serial number of failed request:  12
  Current serial number in output stream:  12
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  • omns
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  • Registered: 2008-11-25
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Re: How to make the touchpad turn off automatically when typing

I need to use something like 

syndaemon -i 0.5 -S -d

to get things working.

Appears to be ok at this stage but will keep investigating.

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Silence is sometimes the best answer - Dalai Lama.
  • Registered: 2009-08-10
  • Posts: 23

Re: How to make the touchpad turn off automatically when typing

Hi

i tried your method  in addition to every possible way google search threw at me (enabling it through xorg, the new jaunty way through the hsl/policy/fdi way etc..) but nothing works.

I keep getting the following error:

"Cant access shared memory area. SHMConfig disabled?"

Even though i did do the hal xml thing

any ideas?

btw runing it on msi wind u-100 and crunch bang 9.04

thx in advance

Zeltak