How to disable/enable touchpad in Ubuntu

tipsThere is a simple way to disable/enable your laptop's touchpad in Ubuntu without removing synaptics driver,so when you want to enable your touchpad ,you no need to re-install the driver:

Edit your xorg.conf file: sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf ,then add a line: Option "SHMConfig" "on" below Section  "InputDevice" as below :

Section "InputDevice"

Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad"

Driver "synaptics"

Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"

Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"

Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"

Option "HorizEdgeScroll" "0"

Option "SHMConfig" "on"

SHMConfig on indicates that configuration permission for touchpad 's parameters has been started,you can already use below commands to control your touchpad:

command:synclient touchpadoff=1 --disable touchpad

command:synclient touchpadoff=0 --enable touchpad

hhaa,my touchpad was disabled:

ubuntu-touchpad1

:),my touchpad was enabled again:

ubuntu-touchpad21

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Tue, 02/24/2009 - 16:51
hris

Ive tried many sites to try to learn to turn my touchpad "tap to click" option off, with no luck. i've read the sectian but failed to find anything relating to the touchpad. Im uber newb to linux, any help would be greatly appreciated

Thu, 01/29/2009 - 23:33
Trey

Everything worked as described above, BUT (like Yosuke) I also had to RESTART before I could use the commands. Thanks!

Thu, 12/25/2008 - 16:40
Ed

This worked great! The only catch is that different laptops have different synaptics sections. For my Dell Inspiron B120, it's:

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Synaptics"
Driver "synaptics"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "yes"
Option "SHMConfig" "on"
EndSection

Then, just use gconf-editor to map the synclient touchpadoff command to your favorite alt-key, and you're set!

Wed, 10/29/2008 - 14:07
Pepe

Ben, I had the same problem: make sure you are editing the right Section "InputDevice", in this case, the one with the Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad".

Mon, 10/13/2008 - 18:26
ben

I've added SMHConfig on to my xorg.conf file. But I keep getting the error message

ben@ben-laptop:/etc/X11$ synclient touchpadoff=1
Can't access shared memory area. SHMConfig disabled?

Could you help me with this?

Thu, 08/14/2008 - 19:45
Yosuke

Yes! It worked for me too! The touchpad disable/enable button started to work after a reboot!

Thanks! This works great!

Sat, 07/19/2008 - 15:27
vrybs

Thanks man! Helped for me.
... but I discovered that when you add
Option “SHMConfig” “on”
in xorg.conf
you don't have to use
command:synclient touchpadoff=...
'cause your laptop's standart disable touchpad button begin to work automatically. At least that happened with me =)

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