Is there a way to disable a laptop's internal keyboard?

Question

A week ago, I spilt the contents of my cup onto my laptop keyboard. Half of the keys no longer work, except one! The letter Q which is very active regularly.

This is very disturbing as I work.

Is there a way to disable the internal keyboard of a laptop?

Is it possible with xmodmap?

Answer 1

You can use xinput to float the input device under X.

1. Execute the command xinput list to list your input devices.
2. Locate AT Translated Set 2 keyboard and take note of its id number; this will be used to disable the keyboard. Also, take note of the number at the end, [slave keyboard (#)]; this is the id number of the master, which will be used to re-enable your keyboard.
3. To disable the keyboard, execute the command xinput float <id#>, where <id#> is your keyboard's id number. For example, if the id was 10, then the command would be xinput float 10.
4. To re-enable the keyboard, execute the command xinput reattach <id#> <master#>, where master is that second number we noted down. So if the number was 3, you would do xinput reattach 10 3.

Here's a demonstration:

$ xinput list
⎡ Virtual core pointer                      id=2    [master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer                id=4    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad                id=11   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Logitech USB-PS/2 Optical Mouse           id=12   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Logitech Unifying Device. Wireless PID:4004   id=13   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                     id=3    [master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard               id=5    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                              id=6    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Video Bus                                 id=7    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Sleep Button                              id=8    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Acer CrystalEye webcam                    id=9    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard              id=10   [slave  keyboard (3)]
$ xinput float 10
$ xinput list
⎡ Virtual core pointer                      id=2    [master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer                id=4    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad                id=11   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Logitech USB-PS/2 Optical Mouse           id=12   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Logitech Unifying Device. Wireless PID:4004   id=13   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                     id=3    [master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard               id=5    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                              id=6    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Video Bus                                 id=7    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Sleep Button                              id=8    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Acer CrystalEye webcam                    id=9    [slave  keyboard (3)]
∼ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard              id=10   [floating slave]
$ xinput reattach 10 3
$ xinput list
⎡ Virtual core pointer                      id=2    [master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer                id=4    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad                id=11   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Logitech USB-PS/2 Optical Mouse           id=12   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Logitech Unifying Device. Wireless PID:4004   id=13   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                     id=3    [master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard               id=5    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                              id=6    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Video Bus                                 id=7    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Sleep Button                              id=8    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Acer CrystalEye webcam                    id=9    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard              id=10   [slave  keyboard (3)]

Answer 2

Here is a little switch button to enable and disable a specific keyboard.

First, you have to find your keyboard id with xinput or xinput-list.

Bash script to enable/disable keyboard

#!/bin/bash
Icon="/PATH/TO/ICON_ON"
Icoff="/PATH_TO_ICON_OFF"
fconfig=".keyboard" 
id=12
if [ ! -f $fconfig ]; then
  echo "Creating config file"
  echo "enabled" > $fconfig
  var="enabled"
else
  read -r var< $fconfig
  echo "keyboard is : $var"
fi
if [ "$var" = "disabled" ]; then
  notify-send -i $Icon "Enabling keyboard..." \ "ON - Keyboard connected !";
  echo "enable keyboard..."
  xinput enable $id
  echo "enabled" > $fconfig
elif [ "$var" = "enabled" ]; then
  notify-send -i $Icoff "Disabling Keyboard" \ "OFF - Keyboard disconnected";
  echo "disable keyboard"
  xinput disable $id
  echo 'disabled' > $fconfig
fi

Configuration

• Icon as the path of icon to display when enabling (for instance, /home/user/path/icon.png)

• Icoff as the path of the icon to display when disabling

• I used the following icons :

  

• id as the keyboard id (found it with xinput)

• fconfig path to config file. Change if you want to create configuration file in another directory

Don't try to run the script if you can't run it again without the use of your keyboard (unless you got another keyboard of course). Create the following launcher (in home/user/.local/share/applications) and add it to unity :

Desktop entry (Unity launcher, Ubuntu 17.10 and below)

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Name=Clavier ON-OFF
Icon=PATH/TO/YOUR/ICON
Exec=bash NAME_OF_YOUR_SCRIPT.sh
Path=PATH/TO/YOUR/SCRIPT
NoDisplay=false
Categories=Utility;
StartupNotify=false
Terminal=false

Result

Launcher:

[

Notifications:

[ [

Answer 3

Device id's received from xinput list as suggested in accepted answer are sometimes somehow changed on reboot (at least on my PC) which resulted in disabling wrong device.

That's why I've ended using device name instead of id, e.g.:

xinput disable "AT Translated Set 2 keyboard"

Answer 4

For Disabling Laptop's internal keyboard permanently On Ubuntu, Need pass this i8042.nokbd Kernel parameters for not to check/create keyboard port

i8042.nokbd [HW] Don't check/create keyboard port

Open terminal and run the following command

$sudo gedit /etc/default/grub

Try to find the following line

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"

Add parameter i8042.nokbd, the above line should be looks like this

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash i8042.nokbd"

Update grub as following command

$sudo update-grub     

Then reboot your laptop computer.

Answer 5

I thought of 2 ways you can do this:

1. By setting up a wrong model for your laptop keyboard in xorg.conf ?

2. By installing Lock-keyboard-for-Baby

`Lock-keyboard-for-Baby or lk4b in short, is a small program which locks your keyboard but leaves your mouse free. I wrote it because my niece likes to bash away at my keyboard whenever she sees me sit down at it. Keys typed on a keyboard can have disastrous consequences and I didn't want to lock my screen all the time with a screensaver.

When started, lock-keyboard-for-baby opens a small window which grabs the keyboard and echos keys which are typed. By default, it tells you what to type to quit ("Quit Now").

Unlike a screensaver, your screen is not blocked and the mouse still partially works, so you can still see what is on your screen - keep watching tv / video and/or read a document using the mouse to scroll.`

Requirements:

· GTK >= 2.x · perl GTK2 bindings (perl-gtk2 or gtk2-perl depending on your system)

Answer 6

One sure way to disable it is to unplug the signal cable. You need to pop up the keyboard for that. For information on how to do that, check out the Maintenance and Service Guide for the HP Pavilion dv9000 and dv9200 Notebook PC .

Now there is a way to disable the keyboard using xinput. T do that, just press Ctrl+Alt+T on your keyboard to open Terminal. When it opens, run the commands below.

To list the devices your X

xinput --list

To disable the keyboard:

xinput set-int-prop 2 "Device Enabled" 8 0

To enable the keyboard again:

xinput set-int-prop 2 "Device Enabled" 8 1

If you get a error about permissions, use the commands above with sudo.

Answer 7

Consequently, I discovered:

$ xinput float id#;sleep t;xinput reattach id# master#

t -time to sleep in seconds

id# and master# as mentioned above (top of page)

For example in my terminal:

$ xinput float 11;sleep 5;xinput reattach 11 3

Answer 8

Input device indicator allows you to enable and/or disable your devices from a menu. It uses xinput internally, but you do not need to open the terminal, list manually, type the command etc.

It is in a PPA, so you can install it with

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv 03BBACDA765F39D9A14EEDE4425F3F9343B40373
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:brandizzi/ppa
sudo apt install input-device-indicator

To invoke it you just need to execute input-device-indicator (which can be added to the session startup programs) or look for "Input Device Indicator" through the HUD (or whatever it is called these days.)

Answer 9

Try running xmodmap -e 'keycode 24=' to disable just the Q key. If that works, you could add it it to your ~/.bashrc or global /etc/bash.bashrc file. I got this idea from here, which shows all the key-mappings.

Answer 10

For what it's worth, based on previous answers and my own playing around, I created the following script, which I call toggle_keyboard.sh and place in my ~/bin path. I have a keyboard shortcut that runs it set to CtrlWinK.

Some problems with the previous answers and benefit of my script:

• Relying on an id number with xinput fails when you reboot and the id number is changed. This happened to me when running xinput float 13. I ended up disabling the wrong hardware.
• Relying on a file to hold the enabled/disabled state will fail if you reboot as well. The file will tell you the keyboard is disabled (if you disabled it with the script), but after a reboot it will be enabled again. My solution gets the enabled/disabled information from a parsed xinput command.
• My script will work with any xinput device that shows up when you type xinput list --name-only. Just get the name and edit the top four variables. I use it for my laptop keyboard, webcam, touchscreen monitor and a few other things I use only once in a while.

---

#!/bin/bash
# Toggle the laptop keyboard either on or off and notify the user about it

# Device name can be found by typing this command: xinput list --name-only
DEVICE_NAME="AT Translated Set 2 keyboard"
# The display name of the device in the notify-send popup
DEVICE_DISPLAY_NAME="Laptop Keyboard"

# Set these to the icons you want to use.
# If they are not found, the notification will still work.
ICON_ENABLE="$HOME/.icons/keyboard.png"
ICON_DISABLE="$HOME/.icons/keyboard_disabled.png"

function xinput_set_prop() {
        xinput set-prop "$DEVICE_NAME" "Device Enabled" $1
}

function notify_change() {
        if [ -f "$1" ]; then
                notify-send --urgency=low --icon="$1" "$2"
        else
                notify-send --urgency=low "$2"
        fi
}

# Returns 1 if device is enabled, 0 if disabled
is_enabled=$(xinput list-props "$DEVICE_NAME" | grep "Device Enabled" | awk '{ print $4 }' | sed 's/[^0-9]*//g')

if [ $is_enabled -eq 1 ]; then
        # device is enabled, so disable it
        xinput_set_prop 0
        notify_change "$ICON_DISABLE" "$DEVICE_DISPLAY_NAME Disabled"
else
        # device is disabled, so enable it
        xinput_set_prop 1
        notify_change "$ICON_ENABLE" "$DEVICE_DISPLAY_NAME Enabled"
fi

Answer 11

xinput float "AT Translated Set 2 keyboard"

After spending hours over years with different methods with different distros and releases. The above terminal command is what I rely on after problems..... I use this now with neon plasma and was using it a month ago in straight ubuntu 18.04. (needs applying after restart - can be placed in startup) * My built in keyboard on my HP Laptop that is damaged and starts typing which causes serious problems - I use a wireless keyboard and mouse - touchpad is on/off as part of KDE topbar options - neon/plasma 5). In system settings / autostart A text file with the following line of code is saved as a .sh file and set as executable (txt files properties)
xinput float "AT Translated Set 2 keyboard"

The text file is given a name > keyboardoff > and placed in autostart (executable) When you restart/start system > built in keyboard is switched off. (use xinput list to test)

Answer 12

#Disable Inbuilt Keyboard on Ubuntu

# Find Keyboard Device ID
KeyboardID=$(xinput list | grep "Translated Set 2 keyboard" | awk '{ gsub(/[[:alpha:]]|[[:punct:]]/," ")}1' | awk  '{print $3}')

# Find Master Device ID
MasterDeviceID=$(xinput list | grep "Translated Set 2 keyboard" | awk '{ gsub(/[[:alpha:]]|[[:punct:]]/," ")}1' | awk  '{print $4}')

# Command to disable Keyboard
xinput float $KeyboardID

# Command to enable Keyboard
xinput reattach $KeyboardID $MasterDeviceID