Touchpad problems?
To change the behavior of the Synaptics / Alps
touch pad, use Control Panel - Desktop - Adjust Touch Pad. If Adjust Touch Pad errors when you launch it, your
touch pad is probably not supported yet, see synaptics below.
By default "tap-to-click" is disabled as some
touchpads are overly sensitive, making the system impossible to
use if it is left on. To turn it back on:
- Open Adjust Touchpad control from
within Control Panel (under Desktop
tab)
- Check the checkbox next to "Enable tap-to-click".
- Then click apply.
Vertical scrolling is by default enabled, using "two
finger" method (touch the touchpad with one finger, then use
another finger to touch and move on the touchpad). This of course
requires multi-touch touchpad; and if you don't have one you need
to use another method for scrolling. To change it, open
Adjust Touchpad as above, and then look at the
dropdown list for "Scroll Method" and choose another one which is
suitable. Don't forget to click apply.
If Control Panel -
Desktop - Adjust Touch Pad doesn't offer the option you want to
adjust, you can do it manually by copying 50-touchpad-gui.conf
to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/60-touchpad-override.conf. Renaming it
with numbers starting with "60" means that whatever setting you
specify here will override the settings you set with the "Adjust
Touchpad" settings, so beware.
Initially this file (after the copy) will contain the following
settings:
#DO NOT EDIT! Used by
touchpad settings app.
Section "InputClass"
Identifier "libinput"
Driver "libinput"
MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
Option "AccelSpeed" "0.00"
Option "DisableWhileTyping" "false"
Option "HorizontalScrolling" "false"
Option "LeftHanded" "false"
Option "MiddleEmulation" "false"
Option "NaturalScrolling" "false"
Option "ScrollMethod" "twofinger"
Option "Tapping" "false"
Option "ClickMethod" "buttonareas"
EndSection
First order of business is to change the identifier from
"libinput" to "libinput-override". You can remove the comment on
the first line too since we're editing a copy (not the original
file) so that warning is not applicable.
Then you can change any other properties and settings. After
editing, save the file, and
you must
restart the X server for changes to take effect.
Here's a
couple popular options to adjust :
-
Option "Tapping" "false" This
option sets the tap-to-click behavior. Setting this to
"false" disables tap-to-click behaviour (which is the
default). If you want tap-to-click, change this to "true" to
start with and adjust as needed.
-
Option "AccelSpeed" "0.00" This
option sets how fast the mouse moves as you drag your finger
across the pad. A smaller number is slower, a bigger number
is faster. Ranges from -1 to 1.
If you need more configuration options, take
a look at the man page for xf86-input-libinput.
If libinput doesn't support your touchpad,
use the Gslapt package manager to install xf86-input-synaptics
and flSynclient then restart X. Synaptics is an older
driver for touchpad and may not work properly for newer
devices; however if your hardware is old it may support it
better than libinput (or not - you just have to try). It also
has a lot more options. Use flSynclient to control its
settings. If you don't like it, you can always uninstall it
and Xorg will automatically revert to using libinput.
Synaptics can also be configured using a
configuration file like above. You can find the details for
synaptics driver here.