Brand New User - A way to use hotykeys to turn off / on the track pad.

jjbackagain · 2018-06-06 09:06:09

Hi there... I recently decided to try my hand at writing and wanted to get a laptop for that. SO I bought a cheap 2nd hand laptop off ebay for 50bucks.. a "Compaq Presario CQ62". I've used lunix ditros before and seeminly had no issues installing buneslab.

Anyway, I now have a fresh install. I only really want it to use either googleDocs or libreoffice or something, check email and surf some pages. Nothing special.

One thing I found though was that I kept bumping my track pad with my hand while typing. Even with a mouse plugged in the track pad was still active. I do not want to disable it permanently in case I do not have my mouse or w/e.

TL;DR : So I was hoping that someone may know a way to have a hotkey to disable or enable the trackpad on my laptop. Additionally it would be cool if the track pad enabled and disabled when the usb mouse is plugged in or taken out.

Thanks, and Hi!
--me

Last edited by jjbackagain (2018-06-06 09:06:54)

martix · 2018-06-06 12:22:01

Welcome to the forum!

Did you check this thread already: https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/viewtopic.php?id=3159

There are some info about the issue you mentioned.

jjbackagain · 2018-06-06 21:34:19

martix wrote:

Welcome to the forum!
Did you check this thread already: https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/viewtopic.php?id=3159
There are some info about the issue you mentioned.

Thanks.. but as far as I can tell this dose not help me. This information seems to be about how to disable the trackpad while typing... as my typing is so slow this dose not help.

What I am really looking for is a way to have a hotkey to turn off and on the pad completely and/or disable it when the mouse is plugged in.

hhh · 2018-06-06 21:48:44

jjbackagain wrote:

What I am really looking for is a way to have a hotkey to turn off and on the pad completely and/or disable it when the mouse is plugged in.

not a hotkey, but (I'm guessing) a systray icon that lets you switch. This is completely against our (BL) recommendations, but you can follow our unofficial tutorial for creating a Debian package from this PPA...

Touchpad Indicator...
https://launchpad.net/touchpad-indicator

PPA to *.deb package tutorial, not updated for stretch yet, so you'll have to adjust things accordingly...
https://forums.bunsenlabs.org/viewtopic.php?id=58

If you have trouble or are out of your element, post back and I'll have a go at it, or maybe another forum member will help.

PackRat · 2018-06-06 22:45:05

You can try this command in a terminal:

synclient TouchpadOff=$(synclient -l | grep -c 'TouchpadOff.*=.*0')

I used it to toggle on/off the touchpad on my HP laptop. I almost always had a wireless mouse attached so I put the command in my autostart file and set up a keybinding.

It may be obsolete now, I believe it requires the xserver-xorg-input-synaptics package to be installed, if BL is defaulting to libinput now it may not work.

stevep · 2018-06-06 23:01:03

MX touchpad-indicator packages that were built on vanilla Debian (15=jessie, 17=Stretch) available here: http://mxrepo.com/mx/repo/pool/main/t/t … indicator/

I can vouch that it works as advertised, though you have to manually select the option to disable the pad when a mouse is plugged in.

hhh · 2018-06-06 23:08:29

PackRat wrote:

It may be obsolete now, I believe it requires the xserver-xorg-input-synaptics package to be installed, if BL is defaulting to libinput now it may not work.

Libinput is the default on Debian stretch, so it's our default too...

rachel@TyrellCorp:~$ apt-cache policy xserver-xorg-input-libinput
xserver-xorg-input-libinput:
  Installed: 0.23.0-2
  Candidate: 0.23.0-2
  Version table:
 *** 0.23.0-2 500
        500 https://deb.debian.org/debian stretch/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

I'm going to defer to @HoaS or someone else with more experience here to give you instructions for using synaptics. This is a good start though, and maybe all you'll need...

https://wiki.debian.org/SynapticsTouchp … Stretch.22

hhh · 2018-06-06 23:09:24

stevep wrote:

MX touchpad-indicator packages that were built on vanilla Debian (15=jessie, 17=Stretch) available here: http://mxrepo.com/mx/repo/pool/main/t/t … indicator/
I can vouch that it works as advertised, though you have to manually select the option to disable the pad when a mouse is plugged in.

Oh, that is nice. As always, thank you stevep!

jjbackagain · 2018-06-07 00:40:34

Thanks for the response guys...

stevep wrote:

MX touchpad-indicator packages that were built on vanilla Debian (15=jessie, 17=Stretch) available here: http://mxrepo.com/mx/repo/pool/main/t/t … indicator/
I can vouch that it works as advertised, though you have to manually select the option to disable the pad when a mouse is plugged in.

great.. so how exactly do I install this and stuff?

hhh · 2018-06-07 04:25:23

jjbackagain wrote:

great.. so how exactly do I install this and stuff?

This is really hand-holding, some forums might scoff at this. Myself, zero effs were given this day.

Click the link that brings you to the repo...
http://mxrepo.com/mx/repo/pool/main/t/t … indicator/

This looks like the right link to click and download...
http://mxrepo.com/mx/repo/pool/main/t/t … +1_all.deb

Install the package(s) with gdebi or dpkg -i.

Logout? Reboot? Post back? Profit?
-edit- before logging out, I'm guessing you'll need to add

touchpad-indicator &

... to your Openbox autostart file (right-click the desktop>Preferences>Openbox>Edit autostart).

Head_on_a_Stick · 2018-06-07 06:20:38

PackRat wrote:

it requires the xserver-xorg-input-synaptics package to be installed, if BL is defaulting to libinput now it may not work.

BL-He uses xserver-xorg-input-synaptics so your snippet should work fine.

FWIW, I posted something similar in an openbox menu entry once.

jjbackagain · 2018-06-12 22:46:48

hhh wrote:

Click the link that brings you to the repo...
http://mxrepo.com/mx/repo/pool/main/t/t … indicator/
This looks like the right link to click and download...
http://mxrepo.com/mx/repo/pool/main/t/t … +1_all.deb
Install the package(s) with gdebi or dpkg -i.
Logout? Reboot? Post back? Profit?
-edit- before logging out, I'm guessing you'll need to add
touchpad-indicator &
... to your Openbox autostart file (right-click the desktop>Preferences>Openbox>Edit autostart).

Thanks I'll see if that is something I can work out how to do. Cheers.

hhh wrote:

jjbackagain wrote:
great.. so how exactly do I install this and stuff?
This is really hand-holding, some forums might scoff at this. Myself, zero effs were given this day.

Not everyone is technically minded. I've been using dos then windows for nearly 40 years and find a lot of new technology confusing, particularly if it is not windows. There is a tendency in specialist forums like this for people to assume knowledge when there is none. Like "Install the package(s) with gdebi or dpkg -i" what dose that even mean?

Which is why I posted in a the basic help section AND titled my post as being a noob. If answering the same questions 500 times is something people like then maybe they shouldn't read posts in the basic questions department.

ohnonot · 2018-06-13 04:00:01

jjbackagain wrote:

Like "Install the package(s) with gdebi or dpkg -i" what dose that even mean?

https://www.startpage.com/do/dsearch?qu … dpkg+gdebi

jjbackagain wrote:

There is a tendency in specialist forums like this for people to assume knowledge when there is none.
If answering the same questions 500 times is something people like then maybe they shouldn't read posts in the basic questions department.

personally, and by way of explanation, i get less and less willing to do a lot of explaining if i notice that OP isn't putting in any effort into thinking & troubleshooting (and using a search engine certainly falls under that) before posting. because essentially, they're asking me to do their work for them. not specialist work, just leg work.
unless you consider using a search engine special technical knowledge.

#1 2018-06-06 09:06:09

Brand New User - A way to use hotykeys to turn off / on the track pad.

#2 2018-06-06 12:22:01

Re: Brand New User - A way to use hotykeys to turn off / on the track pad.

#3 2018-06-06 21:34:19

Re: Brand New User - A way to use hotykeys to turn off / on the track pad.

#4 2018-06-06 21:48:44

Re: Brand New User - A way to use hotykeys to turn off / on the track pad.

#5 2018-06-06 22:45:05

Re: Brand New User - A way to use hotykeys to turn off / on the track pad.

#6 2018-06-06 23:01:03

Re: Brand New User - A way to use hotykeys to turn off / on the track pad.

#7 2018-06-06 23:08:29

Re: Brand New User - A way to use hotykeys to turn off / on the track pad.

#8 2018-06-06 23:09:24

Re: Brand New User - A way to use hotykeys to turn off / on the track pad.

#9 2018-06-07 00:40:34

Re: Brand New User - A way to use hotykeys to turn off / on the track pad.

#10 2018-06-07 04:25:23

Re: Brand New User - A way to use hotykeys to turn off / on the track pad.

#11 2018-06-07 06:20:38

Re: Brand New User - A way to use hotykeys to turn off / on the track pad.

#12 2018-06-12 22:46:48

Re: Brand New User - A way to use hotykeys to turn off / on the track pad.

#13 2018-06-13 04:00:01

Re: Brand New User - A way to use hotykeys to turn off / on the track pad.

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