Enabling Tapping on the Touchpad in Linux#
I’ve been trying to improve my Linux user experience lately. I use a Dell G5 SE laptop, and it isn’t the best laptop to use Linux in. I bought this thing only because I didn’t find another pure-AMD laptop at the time.
I run Manjaro XFCE, and I’ve had some issues running it. I’m a Linux Mint user most of the time, and as of this writing I’m waiting for the Mint experience to improve on this laptop.
This post is mostly to just remind myself how to enable tapping on the
touchpad. Earlier, I used to run xinput to solve this.
First, run xinput list to get the id value of the touchpad.
xinput list
⎡ Virtual core pointer id=2 [master pointer (3)]
⎜ ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer id=4 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ Logitech M720 Triathlon id=10 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ DELL09F5:00 04F3:30CB Mouse id=12 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ DELL09F5:00 04F3:30CB Touchpad id=13 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ ETPS/2 Elantech Touchpad id=15 [slave pointer (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard id=3 [master keyboard (2)]
↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard id=5 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Video Bus id=6 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Power Button id=7 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Sleep Button id=8 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ liliums Lily58 id=9 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Integrated_Webcam_HD: Integrate id=11 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard id=14 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Logitech M720 Triathlon id=16 [slave keyboard (3)]
Here, the device I want is DELL09F5:00 04F3:30CB Touchpad and as you can see,
the id is 13. So next, let’s see the properties of the touchpad.
xinput list-props 13
Device 'DELL09F5:00 04F3:30CB Touchpad':
Device Enabled (163): 1
Coordinate Transformation Matrix (165): 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000
libinput Tapping Enabled (320): 0
libinput Tapping Enabled Default (321): 0
libinput Tapping Drag Enabled (322): 1
libinput Tapping Drag Enabled Default (323): 1
libinput Tapping Drag Lock Enabled (324): 0
libinput Tapping Drag Lock Enabled Default (325): 0
libinput Tapping Button Mapping Enabled (326): 1, 0
libinput Tapping Button Mapping Default (327): 1, 0
libinput Natural Scrolling Enabled (298): 0
libinput Natural Scrolling Enabled Default (299): 0
libinput Disable While Typing Enabled (328): 1
libinput Disable While Typing Enabled Default (329): 1
libinput Scroll Methods Available (300): 1, 1, 0
libinput Scroll Method Enabled (301): 1, 0, 0
libinput Scroll Method Enabled Default (302): 1, 0, 0
libinput Click Methods Available (330): 1, 1
libinput Click Method Enabled (331): 1, 0
libinput Click Method Enabled Default (332): 1, 0
libinput Middle Emulation Enabled (307): 0
libinput Middle Emulation Enabled Default (308): 0
libinput Accel Speed (309): 0.000000
libinput Accel Speed Default (310): 0.000000
libinput Accel Profiles Available (311): 1, 1
libinput Accel Profile Enabled (312): 1, 0
libinput Accel Profile Enabled Default (313): 1, 0
libinput Left Handed Enabled (314): 0
libinput Left Handed Enabled Default (315): 0
libinput Send Events Modes Available (283): 1, 1
libinput Send Events Mode Enabled (284): 0, 0
libinput Send Events Mode Enabled Default (285): 0, 0
Device Node (286): "/dev/input/event10"
Device Product ID (287): 1267, 12491
libinput Drag Lock Buttons (316): <no items>
libinput Horizontal Scroll Enabled (317): 1
libinput Scrolling Pixel Distance (318): 15
libinput Scrolling Pixel Distance Default (319): 15
The line we are interested in shows something regarding tapping. So let’s filter the nonsense out.
xinput list-props 13 | grep -i tap
libinput Tapping Enabled (320): 0
libinput Tapping Enabled Default (321): 0
libinput Tapping Drag Enabled (322): 1
libinput Tapping Drag Enabled Default (323): 1
libinput Tapping Drag Lock Enabled (324): 0
libinput Tapping Drag Lock Enabled Default (325): 0
libinput Tapping Button Mapping Enabled (326): 1, 0
libinput Tapping Button Mapping Default (327): 1, 0
The first line here, libinput Tapping Enabled (320): 0 is what we are
interested in. Let’s set that to 1.
xinput set-prop 13 320 1
This command sets the property ID 320 of device ID 13 to 1, which is what we need.
A quick perusal of our previous command will reveal that the value has indeed
changed to 1. However, you can also check that merely tapping your touchpad
to click works now.
While you could stuff this line into your .xinputrc file and have it run
there, know that the device ID _will_ change often. You shouldn’t rely on it.
Instead, you need to persist these settings by modifying the xinput settings
file for your touchpad. Default configurations for xinput are in
/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/40-libinput.conf, which you should not modify.
Instead, _copy_ the file to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/40-libinput.conf, which
normally shouldn’t exist.
Now, find the section that looks like this:
Section "InputClass"
Identifier "libinput touchpad catchall"
MatchIsTouchpad "on"
MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
Driver "libinput"
EndSection
Just before EndSection, add Option "Tapping" "on", so that the section now
looks like:
Section "InputClass"
Identifier "libinput touchpad catchall"
MatchIsTouchpad "on"
MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
Driver "libinput"
Option "Tapping" "on"
EndSection
Now, save this file and reboot. This should preserve your settings even if your touchpad device ID changes.
To see more settings you can modify for libinput, check out the man pages.