Bug 362800

Summary:	Touchpad setting "Disable taps and scrolling only" ignored
Product:	[Applications] systemsettings	Reporter:	Mark <mark.fitch1>
Component:	kcm_touchpad	Assignee:	Plasma Bugs List <plasma-bugs-null>
Status:	RESOLVED FIXED
Severity:	normal	CC:	rajeeshknambiar
Priority:	NOR
Version First Reported In:	5.17.5
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Fedora RPMs
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Mark 2016-05-08 02:17:55 UTC

I have an HP Envy 17 which includes a no-button touchpad.  Using KDE System Settings I can enable the touchpad setting "Disable touchpad when typing" however the sub-setting "Disable taps and scrolling only" is not honored.  Further, disabling the main setting "Disable touchpad when typing" is not honored either, whether or not I log out and back in or reboot the system.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open System Settings -> Input Devices -> Touchpad -> Enable/Disable Touchpad
2. Ensure "Disable touchpad when typing" and "Disable taps and scrolling only" are enabled
3. Open Kate (text editor) and continually hold a key, such as 'w' while trying to move the mouse cursor with the touchpad.

Actual Results:  
The mouse cursor does not move.  Releasing the 'w' key will allow mouse cursor movement again using the touchpad.

Expected Results:  
The mouse cursor responds to movement requests even during keyboard key presses.

I have both the xorg-x11-drv-synaptics and xorg-x11-drv-libinput installed on my Fedora 23 x64 install.  I've already tried renaming the files /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-synaptics.conf and /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/90-libinput.conf as suggested in another bug report: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=360943, but it didn't work.

Comment 1 Rajeesh K V 2016-05-16 16:21:12 UTC

Can you confirm the input driver used?
Try: $ xlsatoms | grep -i tap

FWIW, libinput does not support the 'disable tapping and scrolling only' option.

Comment 2 Mark 2016-05-21 18:49:51 UTC

Thank you for your response Rajeesh.  Here is the output you requested:

272     libinput Tapping Enabled
273     libinput Tapping Enabled Default
274     libinput Tapping Drag Lock Enabled
275     libinput Tapping Drag Lock Enabled Default

It seems I am in fact using libinput.  I suppose I can try and switch back to using Synaptics as the driver to see if it works.  Let me know if there's anything else you would like to provide.

Comment 3 Rajeesh K V 2016-05-21 19:14:40 UTC

Okay, thanks for confirmation.
You could indeed switch to synaptics driver - simply uninstall xorg-x11-drv-libinput and install xorg-x11-drv-synaptics and see if that helps.

Comment 4 Mark 2016-05-22 17:17:23 UTC

Thanks for such a fast response Rajeesh.  This may not be the best place to ask, but is libinput in its feature-incomplete state not a suitable replacement for the synaptics driver at this time?  I haven't yet tried using the synaptics driver to work around my problem, but I'll try it and post the results.  Thank you again for your help.

Comment 5 Mark 2016-05-22 17:28:19 UTC

I apologize for double-posting in such quick succession but I wanted to report that I replaced libinput with synaptics as you described and all is working as expected again.  Thank you again for your assistance.  I suppose I'll keep an eye on libinput's development and switch back again once these features are supported.

Comment 6 Rajeesh K V 2016-05-22 18:28:38 UTC

You're welcome, Mark.
I think libinput is declared as feature complete. Libinput aims to simplify input handling and a side-effect of it is providing good defaults instead of making many configuration options available, which previous drivers like synaptics did. You could try to contact libinput upstream if you'd like to pursue further. Closing this report.