Cannot disable trackpad on Dell Latitude E6330

[mychance]

Hi,

I usually disable the trackpad on laptops when I have a mouse plugged in so that I don't get the cursor jumping every now and then by accidentally hitting the trackpad with my thumb.

The usual fashion to disable the trackpad on my Dell Latitude is to hold on Fn key and press F5. Although I get to see the trackpad icon poping up with a red "x" on it, the trackpad still stays active. The command does work when I boot in Windowd however so it should not be a hardware problem.

I don't see a trackpad setting in the Control Center either.

Any idea ?

[igor83]

Hi,

I usually disable the trackpad on laptops when I have a mouse plugged in so that I don't get the cursor jumping every now and then by accidentally hitting the trackpad with my thumb.

The usual fashion to disable the trackpad on my Dell Latitude is to hold on Fn key and press F5. Although I get to see the trackpad icon poping up with a red "x" on it, the trackpad still stays active. The command does work when I boot in Windowd however so it should not be a hardware problem.

I don't see a trackpad setting in the Control Center either.

Any idea ?

Under the principle that a reply is better than no reply, I reply. I'd prefer a permanent fix, unless you sometimes need the trackpad (I don't use the one on my Thinkpad R61, preferring the mouse, never did take a shine to those touchpads). I believe you can disable certain kernel services the GUI won't let you touch by modifying a certain file... I did that once, but I can't remember which file, or whether it worked, or whether recompiling the kernel is necessary. There is a config file however that lists all the kernel services, bluetooth, printing, floppy driver, and a lot of services that one wouldn't find necessary for most systems, but are there for compatibility, and I think you can disable them by removing them from the list or commenting them out, thus conserving system resources, in theory, maybe. But I'm not sure whether the change takes without a recompile. And then there's the question whether you want the change to be made this way, because if your mouse goes on the fritz, then to activate your touchpad you'd have to modify the file and then reboot, a little bit more trouble than just not tapping Fn and F5.

[mychance]

Thanks for your reply. I guess this would be the only solution.

[igor83]

Thanks for your reply. I guess this would be the only solution.

Also, check your BIOS settings--may be a way to turn off the Touchpad there.

[tdockery97]

Have you tried this on the command line?

Code: Select all

synclient TouchpadOff=1

If it works for you, just add it to your startup applications if you don't want to enter it each session.

[mychance]

Have you tried this on the command line?

Code: Select all

synclient TouchpadOff=1

I tried it and got this:

"Couldn't find synaptics properties. No synaptics driver loaded?"

[mychance]

Just a reminder on that topic. I really would like to find an easy solution for disabling the touchpad on a Dell Lalltitude E6330. The FN + F5 shortcut that works in Windows doesn't work in LinuxMint 14 Main. I do see the pop up on the screen telling me that the touchpad is disabled, but it's not.

Thanks in advance for any hints you can give.

[igor83]

Have you tried this on the command line?

Code: Select all

synclient TouchpadOff=1

I tried it and got this:

"Couldn't find synaptics properties. No synaptics driver loaded?"

My guess is you should install synclient, then do as dockery suggested.

[mychance]

Thanks for answering. Sorry for the noob question. How do you install synclient ? If I search that term in synaptics, it brings me "xserver-xorg-input-synaptics" which is alreday installed.