Every laptop user has experience this, you’re typing away and without noticing you graze over the trackpad and your cursor jumps to the middle of the first paragraph. By the time you notice you’ve injected half of the third paragraph into the first. After correcting that typo you find yourself doing the same thing only moments later. Fear not, there is a solution to this madness.
The first thing you’ll need to do is tweak your xorg.conf file, before doing that you should backup your existing configuration. In the event that you make a mistake you can restore it by restoring it in your terminal.
sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.bak
Now that you’ve created a backup, open xorg.conf in your favourite text editor.
sudo pico /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Look for a section named “InputDevice” or create it if it does not exist.
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad"
Driver "synaptics"
Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
Option "HorizScrollDelta" "0"
Option "SHMConfig" "on"
EndSection
The line you want to pay attention to here is the one regarding SHMConfig, this will disable the trackpad while typing. But you’re not quite done yet. Next hit Alt+F2 which will give you the Run Application dialog. Enter the following command and hit Run:
/usr/bin/syndaemon -d -t -i 2
Afterwards, restart your display manager by holding Alt and hitting Backspace. Your keypad is now disabled!
A seasoned Senior Solutions Architect with 18 years of experience in technology design and implementation. Renowned for innovative solutions and strategic insights, he excels in driving complex projects to success. Outside work, he is a passionate fisherman and fish keeper, specializing in planted tanks.