On Sunday 28 February 2016 16:24:12 David Wright wrote: > On Sun 28 Feb 2016 at 11:37:05 (-0500), Gene Heskett wrote: > > On Sunday 28 February 2016 08:04:01 lostson wrote: > > > On 02/28/2016 04:56 AM, BerndSchmittNews wrote: > > > > Hello, > > > > under debian7 I was using gpoint.... to temporarily deactivate > > > > touchpad. My acer laptop drives me crazy, after a while the > > > > pointer is running wild. I hoped that this would not happen in > > > > debian8, but maybe it is a hardware failure, so I have to > > > > live/deal with it. > > > > > > use the command synclient TouchPadOff=1 to turn it off > > > > A previous poster asked about a hot-key combo to turn in on or off. > > > > And this triggers a very long standing ( a decade plus ) sore point, > > like hitting your thumb with a hammer, again, therefore: > > > > rant mode ON! > > > > The hot-key combo is the only sensible way, because whointuncket is > > going to remember that whole phrase quoted above, uppercase > > characters in the right places & all, to assign that on or off. > > Alias? Shell function? On my system, every single-letter command is > undefined except "w". > > I can't speak for Desktop Managers, only Window Managers. There's > typically a toolbar (FvwmButtons in fvwm) where you could have a > button to toggle the touchpad. > > > Side rant: Where the heck is this even documented? Come on folks, > > fess up! Just having that one liner available seems to be one of > > linux's biggest, most well kept secrets, and something that > > lappy/notebook users would cheerfully sell the family farm to know. > > And that lack is the same stuff usually found on the ground behind > > the male of the bovine specie. > > Assuming you're in X, the module that runs it is > xserver-xorg-input-synaptics whose > /usr/share/doc/xserver-xorg-input-synaptics/README.Debian starts > > xserver-xorg-input-synaptics for Debian > --------------------------------------- > > This package contains the Synaptics TouchPad driver for X.Org X > server. See also the README file for details on configuration options. > > Runtime configuration > --------------------- > > The synclient and xinput tools allow configuring various aspects of > the driver's behaviour. See the synaptics(4) man page for details of > the configurable options. > > man synclient tells you that running synclient with no arguments lists > all the options. > > $ synclient | grep -i off > TouchpadOff = 0 > $ > > There are 58 other options too. > > If there _was_ a pain, it was when tapping was the default, years ago. > > > /rant off. > > Whew!
Chuckle, but I just now found out why the pad is totally dead even with the mouse dongle unplugged, couldn't use it if I wanted to, that driver is not installed. I did the install with a std wireless mouse active. I bet theres a clue in that. The installer didn't think it needed another pointing device when it already had one. ;-) I just tested again, the pad is dead, but the buttons still work. Thats rather worthless since you don't have a pointer to tell the menu that pops up what to do. I guessed, hit an x on the keyboard and the requester went away with doing anything I am aware of. It might have killed all the neighbors cats, in which case I am likely in trouble if they ever find out. Same principle as washing your car, it always rains & the mud is then 3" deep. But that mud still has a full dose of winter road salt in it. So: Trivia factoid for the day, if you normally run with a conventional, mouse, leave it plugged in while you do the install. Looks like nearly the best way to terminate that kluge, with prejudice. ;-) > Cheers, > David. Cheers, Gene Heskett -- "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>
