Some significant changes have been happening to the X server over the past couple of releases of Ubuntu. One of the most noticeable alterations has been the removal of the xorg.conf file from the default Ubuntu install (edit – it was removed during the development cycle but reappeared in the release version).

It is a great thing that X is now at the stage where it knows devices well enough to configure them with no user input, but occasionally a device may be incorrectly set up, or one may want to customise beyond default settings.

Such is the case with my synaptics touchpad. I really like the fact that in Linux I can configure the touchpad to trigger a middle mouse button event when it is tapped with 3 fingers. Left click – one finger, right click – two fingers, middle click – three fingers. In addition, I want to be able to disable the touchpad while typing.

In the past, disabling the touchpad temporarily when the keyboard is in use was done by adding a line:

SHMConfig On

to the synaptics device section of the xorg.conf (/etc/X11/xorg.conf), and running the command:

syndaemon -i 0.7 -m 50 -d

at the start of every session (best done by adding it to System>Preferences>Sessions as a new startup program). Things are done slightly differently now, and there is no need to add the line to xorg.conf. Or at least there isn’t if you use the synaptics driver provided by Ubuntu developer William Grant on this forum thread, .deb available here.

You may have to remove the existing driver first:

sudo apt-get remove xserver-xorg-input-synaptics

I had to lock the version to prevent the default Intrepid driver appearing as an update. This can easily be done in Synaptic Package Manager, by searching for synaptics, highlighting the xserver-xorg-input-synaptics package and selecting Package>Lock Version. Now after restarting the X server (Ctrl, Alt and Backspace) and issuing the syndaemon command, the touchpad should be disabled when typing without having to enable SHMConfig.

In order to adjust the various custom settings for the  synaptics touchpad, one can enter a section in xorg.conf. One also needs a ServerLayout section, similar to the one below.

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad"
Driver "synaptics"
Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
Option "LeftEdge" "1900"
Option "RightEdge" "5000"
Option "TopEdge" "1400"
Option "BottomEdge" "4500"
Option "FingerLow" "25"
Option "FingerHigh" "35"
Option "MaxTapTime" "180"
Option "MaxTapMove" "220"
Option "ClickTime" "0"
Option "VertEdgeScroll" "1"
Option "VertScrollDelta" "45"
Option "HorizEdgeScroll" "1"
Option "HorizScrollDelta" "45"
Option "MinSpeed" "0.08"
Option "MaxSpeed" "0.60"
Option "AccelFactor" "0.003"
Option "EdgeMotionMinSpeed" "200"
Option "EdgeMotionMaxSpeed" "200"
Option "TapButton1" "1"
Option "TapButton2" "3"
Option "TapButton3" "2"
EndSection


Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Inputdevice "Synaptics Touchpad"
EndSection