[SOLVED] Deactivate touchpad whenever a mouse is plugged in?

[djc]

Question for a friend, which I couldn't answer: "On my Windows system, when a mouse was plugged in the touchpad was automatically deactivated. [Maybe some setting he doesn't remember.] How can I accomplish that on Linux Mint 19 MATE?"

As a matter of fact, I'd like to know for myself too!

[byteme2]

While there are a few ways to do it, each one has mixed results. One easy one to try is to use the command:

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gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.touchpad send-events disabled-on-external-mouse

If you want to check what these settings currently are set to, run the command:

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gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.touchpad send-events

For some people this one works great, personally I didn't have much success with it. I don't know if that is because I use a Bluetooth mouse or if it is something else. If it doesn't work for you then you can always just set it back to what it was when you started (probably enabled, in which case just replace disabled-on-external-mouse with enabled in the first command and try another method). One method a lot of people use and I found successful was using the touch-pad indicator tool. To get it, run these commands:

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sudo add-apt-repository ppa:atareao/atareao
sudo apt update
sudo apt install touchpad-indicator

It will create a little applet icon in your panel that looks like a touchpad. Click that, select preferences, and then under the Actions tab you should see an option to disable touchpad when the mouse is plugged in. This method works pretty well for me. If you can't find the icon, just run touchpad-indicator in the terminal to start the program.
I always like to avoid solutions that involve the use of a ppa when I can, but in this case I haven't seen any negative consequences from it (yet). Use whichever solution works for you, I would say. You can also find more information here: https://askubuntu.com/questions/787433/ ... 434#787434.

[AlbertP]

I think that this solution is for other desktops ^. On MATE, gsettings is called mateconf.

Also, the schemes that come with MATE start with 'org.mate' instead of 'org.gnome'. A quick DuckDuckGo search seems to indicate, that mateconf has a scheme called org.mate.desktop.peripherals.touchpad. However, it does not have a send-events key. Which seems to indicate that the option is not available on MATE, sadly...

[byteme2]

Sorry, I misread the original post. That's my fault for reading through the forums past midnight... I think some people have had success with the touchpad-indicator app. It wasn't specifically designed for MATE, but it looks like others have found success there regardless. Unfortunately I haven't used MATE and so don't know for myself (which is why I generally don't respond to posts where I don't have knowledge in that area, sorry again for that).

[djc]

Thanks for the help. Mission apparently accomplished, with touchpad-indicator. It's a tiny bit obscure, but seems to do the trick.

[lollyjay]

Thanks so much for this info.