Synaptics Touchpad on Ubuntu 6.06 - QSynaptics

After installing Ubuntu 6.06, the Synaptics touchpad on my HP zd7140us laptop seemed to be working perfectly. However, after a short while, I noticed some annoyingly odd behaviour. Usually when I was typing text in text box, The cursor would jump from where I was currently typing to where the mouse pointer was located (as if I had clicked the left mouse button). Not cool. Also, I wanted to take advantage of the touchpad's other features. After a brief web search, I found QSynaptics.

This is all I had to do

1. Install QSynaptics

sudo apt-get install qsynaptics

2. Edit the X11 config file to enable synclient

sudo vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Add the line "Option SHMConfig on"

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier      "Synaptics Touchpad"
        Driver          "synaptics"
        Option          "SendCoreEvents"        "true"
        Option          "Device"                "/dev/psaux"
        Option          "Protocol"              "auto-dev"
        Option          "HorizScrollDelta"      "0"
        Option          "SHMConfig"             "on"
EndSection

3. Restart X11, in a console type

sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop

Log back in to the console and type

sudo /etc/init.d/gdm start

4. Fire up qsynaptics. Alt-f2, qsynaptics

Any settings changes are saved to ~/.qynaptics. In order to restrore these settings when gnome loads, add the command

qsynaptics -r

to System > Preference > Sessions > Startup Programs

Now whenever you logout or restart your QSynaptics settings will reload. The last step is to add a shortcut in the System > Preferences Menu so you can find QSynaptics months from now. To do this, right click on the System menu and select Edit Menus