Disabled Touchpad, how to enable from command line?

jogl · 2021-10-03 18:07:09

As the title states I disabled the touchpad from the "Mouse and Touchpad" settings menu. How can I turn it back on, hopefully from a terminal?

Also, what I was trying to do was disable the horizontal two finger scrolling and go to side bar scrolling. However on the mouse and touchpad menu the touchpad tab is not there. How can I get the touchpad tab to come up? Or if I cannot how can I turn off horizontal scrolling?

This is on an older Gateway N59 laptop running XFCE 4.14 on Devuan.

Thanks,
JP.

ToZ · 2021-10-03 18:46:35

What do your pointer xfconf settings look like? There should (might?) be a "Device_Enabled" settings there:

xfconf-query -c pointers -lv

On my system, I get:

/SynPS2_Synaptics_TouchPad/Acceleration                         -1.000000
/SynPS2_Synaptics_TouchPad/Properties/Device_Enabled            0
/SynPS2_Synaptics_TouchPad/Properties/libinput_Tapping_Enabled  1
/SynPS2_Synaptics_TouchPad/Properties/Synaptics_Tap_Action      <<UNSUPPORTED>>
/SynPS2_Synaptics_TouchPad/RightHanded                          true
/SynPS2_Synaptics_TouchPad/Threshold                            -1

So, for me to enable it using a command:

xfconf-query -c pointers -p /SynPS2_Synaptics_TouchPad/Properties/Device_Enabled -s 1

jogl · 2021-10-03 19:23:46

libxconf not working, complaining:

"Failed to init libxconf: Unable to autolaunch a dbus-daemon without a $DISPLAY for X11"

ToZ · 2021-10-03 19:41:35

You need to be in a X session to run this command. Also make sure you are running it as the user you are logged in as, and not root.

jogl · 2021-10-03 19:52:43

Well, my daughter and the grandkids just came over for dinner. I was complaining to her about my dilemma. She said "Why don't you just plug in a USB mouse?"

Yup, problem solved.

But I still want to get rid of the CURSED two finger / horizontal scroll! How?

Thanks ToZ.

ToZ · 2021-10-03 20:10:36

If you are using the synaptics driver, then you can disable it in the touchpad properties.

If you are using libinput, these instructions should work if you use "Horizontal Scroll Enabled 0" instead.

jogl · 2021-10-03 20:18:29

How do I get to touchpad properties?

ToZ · 2021-10-03 20:24:26

xinput --list

look in the core pointer section. Once you've identified your touchpad and it's ID:

xinput --list-props ID

...where ID is the ID you've identified from the first step.

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#1 2021-10-03 18:07:09

Disabled Touchpad, how to enable from command line?

#2 2021-10-03 18:46:35

Re: Disabled Touchpad, how to enable from command line?

#3 2021-10-03 19:23:46

Re: Disabled Touchpad, how to enable from command line?

#4 2021-10-03 19:41:35

Re: Disabled Touchpad, how to enable from command line?

#5 2021-10-03 19:52:43

Re: Disabled Touchpad, how to enable from command line?

#6 2021-10-03 20:10:36

Re: Disabled Touchpad, how to enable from command line?

#7 2021-10-03 20:18:29

Re: Disabled Touchpad, how to enable from command line?

#8 2021-10-03 20:24:26

Re: Disabled Touchpad, how to enable from command line?

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