Thanks for your replies. After reading the forum posts I learned there's a setting in the Dell BIOS under Touchpad/Mouse that fixes this issue. The default is to leave the touchpad on when a mouse is present I've changed this setting to disable the touchpad when a mouse is present.
There are actually two options in the BIOS, one is to disable the touchpad when a PS2 mouse is present, the other is to disable the touchpad when a serial mouse is present. The serial mouse option is the one that works. These choices make no sense at all because this laptop has no serial or PS2 ports. I think this is a compromise solution because it would be better to be able to switch it on and off as required using software. In the Synaptics proprietary software you set an option to disable the touchpad if a mouse is present. The software does this each time, but the touchpad be switched back on at anytime using an icon in the systray. I've been looking at setting a keyboard shortcut for SHMConfig switches "$synclient TouchpadOff=1" and "$synclient TouchpadOff=0" It seems not so easily done, although I've KeyTouch installed. -- The Synaptic Touchpad is not disabled automatically when an external mouse is attached. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/116919 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is the bug contact for Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
