Clickpads

Synaptics Clickpads are (unfortunately) used on a number of laptops and netbooks, and are widely known to be unpleasant to use. While the default Ubuntu configuration works, it can be at times even more painful than on other platforms. In an effort to make the Clickpad more user-friendly when used with ubermix, we have included a package in version 0.910 and above with a custom version of the driver and configuration, which you can install by following these steps:

1. Press ctrl-alt-t to open a terminal
2. Type "/usr/local/lib/clickpad/fix.sh"
3. Reboot

This installation basically replaced the Synaptics clickpad driver with a newer version, and installs a "quirk" file to adjust the settings for HP clickpads. This quirk file looks like this:

Section "InputClass"
 Identifier "HP Clickpad"
 MatchIsTouchpad "on"
 MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
 Driver "synaptics"
 Option "TopEdge" "0"
 Option "BottomEdge" "3800"
 Option "AreaBottomEdge" "4200"
 Option "RBCornerButton" "1"
 Option "LBCornerButton" "1"
 Option "JumpyCursorThreshold" "150"
 Option "TouchButtonArea" "40"
EndSection

Essentially, what this does is moves the sensor BottomEdge up, so that movement is no longer detected when a finger is on the bottom (button) part of the clickpad, and tweaks a number of other settings to make the device more usable. For a full definition of these options, as well as the hundred or so others available:

1. Open a terminal (ctrl-alt-t)
2. Type "man synaptics".

To tinker with the options on a live machine, in the terminal (ctrl-alt-t):

1. Type "synclient" to see all the current settings
2. Type "synclient [option]=[value] . For example: synclient BottomEdge=3800

When you find a group of settings you like, you can make the permanent by updating the quirk file:

1. Open a terminal (ctrl-alt-t)
2. Type sudo gedit /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/52-synaptics-quirks.conf
3. Add your preferred settings to the file.