[Solved] Persistent touchpad settings?

[kgha]

Running Salix lxfe 13.1 on an old Dell laptop. I would like to enable horizontal two-finger scroll. The command

Code: Select all

synclient HorizTwoFingerScroll=1

does the trick but only for the session - after reboot settings are gone.

On my previous distro (FluxFlux) I have simply edited /etc/X11/xorg.conf to my liking - but I don't have a xorg.conf file.

Adding 'synclient HorizTwoFingerScroll=1' to /home/<user>/.config/autostart.sh would probably work fine - but I don't have an autostart file either.

Grateful for help!

[Shador]

Configuration for Xorg is now handled by only adding the snippet with the desired effect to a file in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d.

A file with more options could look like this for synaptics (/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-synaptics.conf):

Code: Select all

Section "InputClass"
       Identifier "touchpad"
       Driver "synaptics"
       MatchIsTouchpad "on"
              Option "TapButton1" "1"
              Option "TapButton2" "2"
              Option "TapButton3" "3"
              Option "VertEdgeScroll" "on"
              Option "VertTwoFingerScroll" "on"
              Option "HorizEdgeScroll" "on"
              Option "HorizTwoFingerScroll" "on"
              Option "CircularScrolling" "on"
              Option "CircScrollTrigger" "2"
              Option "EmulateTwoFingerMinZ" "40"
              Option "EmulateTwoFingerMinW" "8"
              Option "CoastingSpeed" "0"
 EndSection

Of course you can just add the one single option you mentioned.

[kgha]

Thanks a lot! Good to know how to adjust xorg configuration for the future!
I did some fiddling of my own yesterday and found another solution: adding

Code: Select all

@synclient HorizTwoFingerScroll=1

to /etx/xdg/lxsession/LXDE/autostart seems to work fine as well.

[Shador]

Possibly, but xorg.conf is actually cleaner for persisten stuff because there is one unified place for it and because it's use does not depend on the de used or anything else.

[mimosa]

The equivalent file for my Thinkpad, using Maté Live, is slightly differently named (but presumably I should just edit it accordingly):

Code: Select all

root[one]# cat /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-synaptics.conf 
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE - IT WILL BE OVERWRITTEN ON UPGRADES
# Copy this file to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ and edit the copy
#
# Use "synclient -l" to see all available options
# Use "man synaptics" for details about what the options do
#
Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "touchpad"
        Driver "synaptics"
        MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
        MatchIsTouchpad "on"
        Option "TapButton1" "1"
        Option "TapButton2" "2"
        Option "TapButton3" "3"
EndSection

EDIT

Another question: how to apply the settings in the file without rebooting? I'm using an Xfce Live disk to test how this plays in Xfce (there's no 50-synaptics file), to help a newbie friend adjust his trackpad behaviour. I really don't want to create a persistent file just to test this

[gapan]

Another question: how to apply the settings in the file without rebooting? I'm using an Xfce Live disk to test how this plays in Xfce (there's no 50-synaptics file), to help a newbie friend adjust his trackpad behaviour. I really don't want to create a persistent file just to test this

Generally, kill X and restart it.

Code: Select all

init 3
init 4

is a way of doing it.

[mimosa]

Thanks Gapan. It worked.

[gapan]

In this specific case though, applying only touchpad settings can be done by running synclient with the respective options. Changes are applied on the fly.

[mimosa]

However, my impression is that the changes don't persist that way. So I'd be testing the change, but not the permanent implementation. In fact I did both in that order and both worked. My friend just wants to turn off tap-to-click because he doesn't get on with it:

Code: Select all

$synclient ClickFinger1=0

Because I'm using Maté, I can do the same in some GUI settings menu, but not, as far as I can tell, with Xfce. In fact in my case, the option to turn off the trackpad when typing does the trick, but again, I don't think Xfce has that feature. You get what you pay for, as they say. This laptop can afford to keep a somewhat higher-maintenance DE than my older hardware can.

[gapan]

No, of course changes are not persistent that way.