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Is there a way to reduce the sensitivity to touch of the touchpad? I keep accidentally clicking while typing (disable while typing seems to have little use).

Other possible solutions to my issue: Hold a key to enable click of the touchpad. This way I can do work while holding key, otherwise it becomes inactive (ideal).

I cannot disable tough-to-click since the buttons on the touchpad are touch-enabled and very hard to press. You can imagine how painful/inaccurate that setup becomes.

Dmitriy Likhten
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    Possible duplicate of 14.04 Touchpad is too sensitive – xji Jan 26 '18 at 08:03
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    Close voters. I don't see how a historical question regarding 11.04 can be a duplicate of a currently supported release. But perhaps @JIXiang can explain it to us. – Elder Geek Jan 26 '18 at 15:14
  • @ElderGeek OK. I just came across these two questions during my search about the same problem and thought they are about the same thing. The solutions listed in the newer question helped with my problem while the solutions listed here didn't. If you didn't mention it I wouldn't have noticed it's actually about 11.04. I would have thought it's a general question about touchpad sensitivity/click. The distinction you're making might be valid, though it might also be the case that the solutions listed in the newer question would also work on 11.04. I don't have this version so I don't know. – xji Jan 26 '18 at 15:22
  • Guess anyways also pointing to that newer question here wouldn't hurt. – xji Jan 26 '18 at 15:23
  • Agreed. No harm. – Elder Geek Jan 26 '18 at 15:24

3 Answers3

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In the Software Center there is an application called Pointing Devices sudo apt-get install gpointing-device-settings That should have everything you need.

Leron
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    I f-ing love you man. I think you just may saved me a bit of sanity. bows... Nifty settings like palm detection, pressure sensitivity, etc. Oh man. The problem is that each settings mechanism is not independent. I still need to use mouse settings to get tapping/two finger scrolling working, and gpointing-device-settings to get the advanced features. -1 to the devs for not integrating. – Dmitriy Likhten May 12 '11 at 13:11
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syndaemon  - a program that monitors keyboard activity and disables the
             touchpad when the keyboard is being used.

Here is an example of how to use it: syndaemon -dtKRi 2

  • -d Runs the program in the background.
  • -t Disables clicks, but not mouse movement.
  • -K Allows you to still be able to Ctrl+click.
  • -R Uses XRecord extension to monitor the mouse instead of constant polling. (may not work for some ppl)
  • -i 2 Disables the touchpad for 2 seconds after pressing a keyboard key.
Sepero
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Go to Mouse settings. Under the General tab, there should be a slider for adjusting sensitivity under the Pointer Speed category.

I don't know if there's a way to hold a key down to toggle the touchpad on and off, but you can set a keyboard shortcut to do so. Open up Keyboard Shortcuts, then press the 'Add' button and, under command, enter gconftool-2 /desktop/gnome/peripherals/touchpad/touchpad_enabled --toggle. Enter a name for the action, e.g. 'Toggle touchpad'. After applying, back in the main Keyboard Shortcuts window, under the 'Shortcut' column, enter in a keyboard shortcut of your choice.

screenshot of keyboard shortcuts

Mandy
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  • Not even close, my friend. I don't care about pointer speed or responsiveness. I need touch sensitivity as in I want a light touch to be ignored. – Dmitriy Likhten May 12 '11 at 13:05
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    The setting was, in fact, for touch sensitivity (even though it was under the pointer speed category for some reason -- probably because the two do affect each other), but I'm glad you were able to find another solution that met your needs. – Mandy May 12 '11 at 15:49
  • wish I could accept two answers. I am using your suggestion for the disabling of the touchpad to one of the media buttons supplied by hp with my keyboard (not a big fan of em but hey, still good). This really helps since when I am typing I really want my touchpad dead for usually extended periods of time. – Dmitriy Likhten May 13 '11 at 04:53
  • is there any support for the enable/disable touchpad light+functionality present in the HP touchpads (theres an area in the upper left corner where in windows it will disable the touchpad and give a nifty light, that would be awesome) – Dmitriy Likhten May 13 '11 at 04:55
  • I'm glad my answer was helpful. I got the button above my touchpad working by pressing it instead of a keyboard shortcut using the same method as above. Not sure if it'll work with your machine, but it's worth a try. The light is always on, though; not sure how to deal with that. – Mandy May 13 '11 at 06:50
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    In Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, Dell 9370 I was unable to find the setting for touchpad sensitivity under mouse pointer speed, unfortunately... This answer was helpful, though: https://askubuntu.com/a/539181/391188 – xji Jan 26 '18 at 07:59