Restricting Touchpad Functions

[jonathan9]

All the newer software including KDE is set up to use the mouse with scroll areas, gestures, etc..

When I use my touchpad, this "feature" causes me to omit a relatively constant stream of invective when I'm just trying to get the mouse cursor from point a to point b. The worst thing is when I'm going through a very long page carefully and I'm trying to get the mouse to the next location of interest and the whole thing starts scrolling. I can completely lose my place and my concentration. Sometimes, placing the mouse at a location also causes an unwanted insert from clipboard.

Do you know any way to lobotomize it so it will do the following and *only* the following?

* Move the mouse cursor
* Honor it's physical buttons
* Left click on most or all of the pad
* Right click in a region - like the upper right corner (I can easily do without this.)

I would like this behavior for my entire system.

I am currently running kubuntu oneiric amd64 on a notebook with a synaptics touchpad.

[richb]

Have you tried System Settings>Input Devices>Touchpad? There are many configurable options for the touchpad. If it does not show install kde-config-touchpad.

[SecretCode]

I think you meant "emit" not "omit". Anyway, a constant stream of invective sounds good - no jitter, no "buffering", etc.

Do you have the synaptiks command? I think it's in package kde-config-touchpad.

With this, under "touchpad management", you can set the touchpad to switch off for a second or so after typing - this helps prevent accidentally typing into (or pasting into) the wrong place.
Under "touchpad configuration", you have various ways of controlling the touchpad operation (possibly depending on your exact model of touchpad) - including how vertical scrolling is detected - and what the corners do (you probably have one of the corners set as "middle button" which will do a paste action).