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I previously used Fn+F9 to disable/enable my touchpad for when I used an external mouse (when using Ubuntu 16.04). After upgrading to 18.04 I've found that when I hit that combination I get a graphic showing the touchpad icon with an "X" but it actually doesn't do anything at all.

I have an Asus UX305C

$ lsmod | grep asus
asus_nb_wmi            28672  0
asus_wmi               28672  1 asus_nb_wmi
sparse_keymap          16384  1 asus_wmi
wmi                    24576  1 asus_wmi
video                  45056  2 asus_wmi,i915
asus_wireless          16384  0
$ dconf read /org/gnome/desktop/peripherals/touchpad/send-events
'enabled'

EDIT: I discovered that it works correctly in the login screen and also works fine when using a LiveUSB 18.04. I think the issue is some residual package or setting from a 16.04.

Tim Tisdall
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  • Please add output of lsmod | grep asus to the question. – N0rbert Apr 05 '19 at 15:14
  • @N0rbert - Thanks. I knew I needed more info, but wasn't sure what to include. – Tim Tisdall Apr 05 '19 at 18:01
  • I'm have just booted my Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS (using MATE and GNOME DEs, with kernel 4.15.0-47, without Xorg HWE) on my UX32A. The loaded kernel modules are the same as yours. I have no problems: <Fn>+<F9> enables and disables touchpad normally. What is your desktop environment? Please add output of dconf read /org/gnome/desktop/peripherals/touchpad/send-events (for GNOME) or dconf read /org/mate/desktop/peripherals/touchpad/touchpad-enabled (for MATE) to the question. – N0rbert Apr 05 '19 at 18:56
  • @N0rbert - added above... Mine is an upgrade from 16.04. – Tim Tisdall Apr 05 '19 at 20:12
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    You might look at touchpad-indicator. It does all of this auto-magically. – heynnema Apr 05 '19 at 20:21
  • Try to update corresponding parameter manually with dconf write /org/gnome/desktop/peripherals/touchpad/send-events "['disabled']" and then test touchpad reaction. – N0rbert Apr 05 '19 at 20:21
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    @N0rbert when advicing people to manually edit dconf setting, better advice to use gsettings, which is the cli frontend to dconf. One of the reasons is that the higher level gsettings includes consistency check for dconf. The command for gsettings would then be on 18.04: gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.touchpad send-events 'disabled' – Jacob Vlijm Apr 05 '19 at 20:28
  • @N0rbert I did gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.touchpad send-events 'disabled' and it disabled the touchpad, but Fn-F9 still showed the same icon with an X on it as if it was disabling and did nothing (the touchpad remained disabled until I ran the command again with enabled). – Tim Tisdall Apr 07 '19 at 12:42
  • @TimTisdall you can try to create new user account or use guest session and check Fn-F9 from it. – N0rbert Apr 07 '19 at 15:20
  • @N0rbert - added more info... It works fine from a LiveUSB or on the login screen. I'm guessing there's some local config that's messing something up, but I don't have a clue where to begin finding that. I don't see anything in ~/.gconf, ~/.gnome, ~/.gnome2 that seems pertinent. Is there some way to see a diff of gsettings from the defaults? – Tim Tisdall Apr 08 '19 at 12:39
  • As useful starting point I can recommend to restore default permissions in the home folder with sudo chown -R $USER:$USER $HOME and then reboot. About diff: you can use gsettings list-recursively | sort > one and then compare them with some other version (for example from LiveUSB - gsettings list-recursively | sort > two) using plain diff one two or MeldMerge (meld one two). – N0rbert Apr 08 '19 at 13:19
  • @N0rbert - The only thing I found in gsettings that seemed like it may have any effect is org.gnome.desktop.interface gtk-im-module 'gtk-im-context-simple' is on a clean LiveUSB while my system is 'ibus'. I tried changing it to 'gtk-im-context-simple', but it didn't seem to change anything. – Tim Tisdall Apr 10 '19 at 17:40
  • @N0rbert - hmm... I set it to 'gtk-im-context-simple' but after reboot it reverted to 'ibus'. No idea if changing would help any way, though. – Tim Tisdall Apr 10 '19 at 17:53
  • this may be related https://askubuntu.com/q/1140686/739431 – PRATAP May 05 '19 at 19:09

0 Answers0