I wrote up a explanation of this for one of our users this morning and
figured I'd forward it on to the lists so that others know as well, and
so that next time I'm asked I can find it in the list archives.
-alan-
-------- Original Message --------
> Btw, I often wished there were a way to selectively/temporarily disable
> the trackpad. I'm using an external USB mouse most of the time, only
> recurring to the trackpad when I have to free the (single usable) USB
> port to attach an USB stick or if USB devices have been `disabled' by
> suspend/resume.
>
> When the USB mouse works, it often happens to me that I inadvertently
> touch the pad and it just gets in my way.
Modern Xorg defaults to opening all devices individually and then merging
them into the "core" devices. The xinput program lets you see and adjust
this.
So for instance, on my Toshiba M10 laptop:
alanc@alanc-laptop:~ [10:34am - 2] xinput list
⎡ Virtual core pointer id=2 [master pointer (3)]
⎜ ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer id=4 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ PS/2 Port for PS/2-style Mice id=6 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ mouse id=9 [slave pointer (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard id=3 [master keyboard (2)]
↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard id=5 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ hotkey id=7 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ System keyboard id=8 [slave keyboard (3)]
If I want the trackpad (aka the "PS/2 mouse" since my Toshiba has no
actual PS/2 port, but uses the PS/2 input controller for the builtin
trackpad) to temporarily not be part of that, I can make it "float" as
a separate input device that programs can address directly but which
isn't merged into controlling the core cursor:
alanc@alanc-laptop:~ [10:35am - 4] xinput float 6
alanc@alanc-laptop:~ [10:35am - 5] xinput list
⎡ Virtual core pointer id=2 [master pointer (3)]
⎜ ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer id=4 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ mouse id=9 [slave pointer (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard id=3 [master keyboard (2)]
↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard id=5 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ hotkey id=7 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ System keyboard id=8 [slave keyboard (3)]
∼ PS/2 Port for PS/2-style Mice id=6 [floating slave]
and with that the trackpad no longer moves the main cursor or reports
button clicks.
When I'm done and want to use it again:
alanc@alanc-laptop:~ [10:39am - 7] xinput reattach 6 2
alanc@alanc-laptop:~ [10:39am - 8] xinput list
⎡ Virtual core pointer id=2 [master pointer (3)]
⎜ ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer id=4 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ PS/2 Port for PS/2-style Mice id=6 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ mouse id=9 [slave pointer (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard id=3 [master keyboard (2)]
↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard id=5 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ hotkey id=7 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ System keyboard id=8 [slave keyboard (3)]
I'm sure GNOME could put more user-friendly UI on top of this, but
it works for those not afraid of a few Unix CLI's (and is probably
scriptable if you wanted to make a gnome-panel launch button for it).
http://who-t.blogspot.com/ has more explanations & sample code if
someone wants to try writing a C program to implement. One of the
recent posts there does mention GNOME 3 added UI for this, but we
don't have GNOME 3 yet.
--
-Alan Coopersmith- [email protected]
Oracle Solaris Platform Engineering: X Window System
_______________________________________________
xwin-discuss mailing list
[email protected]
List info: http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/xwin-discuss
Unsubscribe: http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/options/xwin-discuss
