May

Tip: How to Configure Your Synaptics Touchpad in Linux

Rai

Linux

acer, kubuntu, laptop, Linux, mouse, notebook, synaptics, touchpad

One of the prominent features of notebooks today is the presence of the touchpad in place of a mouse. My Acer 5570 notebook has Synaptics Touchpad which is compatible with Linux systems that I have installed. Though the settings of Synpatics are present by default on systems, you can tweak the settings to match your preferences.

To make some changes on your Synaptics settings, you can edit the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file and locate the section that looks like this:

Section “InputDevice”
Identifier “Synaptics Touchpad”
Driver “synaptics”
Option “SendCoreEvents” “true”
Option “Device” “/dev/psaux”
Option “Protocol” “auto-dev”
Option “HorizEdgeScroll” “0″
EndSection

Add this line before the EndSection part:

Option “SHMConfig” “true”

Then you need to download the gsynaptics (for GNOME) or ksynaptics (for KDE) package. Since I am using Kubuntu, I will download the ksynaptics package like so:

sudo apt-get install ksynaptics

And restart your X server.

ksynaptics (or gsynaptics) are now running on the system tray and to open the configuration box, right click on the ksynaptics icon and select Configure ksynaptics. If you do not see the icon in the system tray, press the ALT + F2 keys together to open the Run dialog box and type in ksynaptics to open the configuration window.