How to configure my Touchpad? - TUXEDO Computers

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How to configure my Touchpad?

Terminology

In this article, we use the term touchpad, but here it also includes clickpad (touchpad with virtual or real buttons). The differences between both input methods are to be found in a separate article.

Synaptics is deprecated

If you've been using Linux for a while, you're probably used to setting up your touchpad using the Synaptics input driver settings with the Synclient tool. The Synaptics driver was written in a time when nobody thought about the display server protocol Wayland as the successor to X11, which is used as standard in more and more distributions. For some years now, in all current distributions, the libinput library has been responsible for managing input devices such as mouse or touchpad under both X11 and Wayland.

Ubuntu 22.04

By default, Ubuntu 22.04 with GNOME interface offers few options for a mouse and none for touchpads in the settings.



To get more options, you must first install the Gnome Tweaks extension (formerly GNOME Tweak Tool). To achieve this, first include the Universe repository:

sudo add-apt-repository universe
followed by 

sudo apt install gnome-tweaks


After launching the application, you will find some more configuration options on the left under Keyboard and Mouse. If you miss more 3- and 4-finger gestures, installing the Gesture Improvements extension will help. For that, first install the extension manager with the command

sudo apt install gnome-shell-extension-manager
Then, open the app by typing extension in the search box and clicking on the Extension Manager icon. There, go to Browse at the top and type gesture improvements in the search box. You will then be able to install the extension. Now go to Installed at the top and click the gear button with Gesture Improvements to select the gestures you want.




TUXEDO OS 

TUXEDO OS uses KDE Plasma as its desktop. Many options are already available by default. They can be found under System Preferences > Input Devices > Touchpad. With Plasma 5.25, additional 3- and 4-finger gestures have been made available, which will be presented in the release announcement. More graphical tools for configuration for other desktop environments can be found on the Arch Wiki in the libinput article.

Further options for the command line

If you would like to create individual touchpad gestures, you should take a look at our in-depth article on this topic.