Re: can't disable Thinkpad touchpad

[Haines Brown <haines@histomat.net>]

On Fri, Jul 10, 2015 at 03:35:30PM +0100, Darac Marjal wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 10, 2015 at 10:07:13AM -0400, Haines Brown wrote:
> > On a new Thinkpad x250, I've installed Sid. The touchpad causes
> > problems, and so I want to disable it. The easy way is Fn+F8, but that
> > key combination does nothing. Is this because Windows is not installed?
> > What should be a sure fire way is to disable it in BIOS. I do that, but
> > it has no effect.
> > 
> > How do I get rid of it?
> 
> According to
> http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Synaptics_TouchPad_driver_for_X, you can
> either:
> 
>  * Execute `xinput set-int-prop "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad" "Synaptics \
>    Off" 8 1` at a command prompt (or bind that to a hotkey)
>  * Create a file /etc/X11/xorg.d/*.conf with the contents:
> 
>    Section "InputDevice"
>      Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad"
> 	 Driver     "synaptics"
> 	 Option     "TouchpadOff"   "1"
>    EndSection

Thanks. The second approach appealed to me, but trying it was a
disaster. First, I took "*.conf" literally (with wild card). When I
killed X server, it caused the display to loose all sync. I could only
reboot at that point. I believe I should elaborate my prior problems
with touchpad.

When X started, the desktop is stable (I'm using .fluxbox without a
desktop environment). But when I start an X application such as xterm or
emacs, the slightest brush of my hand on the trackpad caused X
applications to crash. When I closed X server (using CAD), it led to
syncronization instability, which I could deal with with C-d or such.

After introducing the xorg.d/*.conf stanza and killing X server, I
couldn't get a stable command prompt to recover except another CAD to
reboot.

So I tried the first approach by installing xinput and while root is in
X session issuing the command. This indeed killed the touchpad and left
Trackpoint working. But when I shut down the X server (I'm not in habit
of doing pkill X), I loose syncronization and am left with black screen
without prompt.

When I reboot and log in as user, I cannot run the command from a user
prompt because user can't access X server, but when I do su for root to
run it, I get Fatal server error: Server already active for display 0.
Strange: I didn't get this error when logged in as root.

This suggests a fluxbox hotkey won't work. I don't think I can put the
xinit command in ~/.fluxbox/startup because those also are commands
issued by user. Likewise for ~/.profile.

So maybe I should put the command in /etc/X11/Xsession.