How to Enable Tapping with your touchpad..

This should get your laptops touchpad working.. with tapping etc..

firstly install synaptics using YUM

[Ankur@Ankur ~]$ su -c ‘yum -y install synaptics’

This package has to be updated with this package. Download it from here ::

http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~bobk/packages/

It fixes a bug ( tapping was not working after the system recovered from suspend mode ) https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=439386

Install it using ‘yum localinstall synap….. ‘

Install “gsynaptics”

[Ankur@Ankur ~]$ su -c 'yum -y install gsynaptics'

Its a gnome GUI frontend for configuring the touchpad.. for KDE install ksynaptics..

In order to use gsynaptics from System>>Preferences>>Hardware>>Touchpad , we need to tweak the xorg.conf file a little bit.. ( we have to add the line “SHMconfig” “true”, try using it before adding the line.. itll give an error..)

Add the lines in RED ::

[Ankur@Ankur ~]$ su -c 'vim /etc/X11/xorg.conf'

vim is an enhanced version of the vi text editor
once the file opens press I to enter INSERT mode (itll show this at the left lower corner )


# Xorg configuration created by livna-config-displaySection

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "single head configuration"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Synaptics" "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "Files"
ModulePath "/usr/lib64/xorg/modules/extensions/nvidia"
ModulePath "/usr/lib64/xorg/modules"
EndSectionSection "Files"

Section "ServerFlags"
Option "AIGLX" "on"
EndSection

# add these.. if a section already exists.. just edit it..

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Synaptics"
Driver "synaptics"
Option "TapButton1" "1"
Option "TapButton2" "2"
Option "TapButton3" "3"
Option "SendCoreEvents"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "yes"
Option "SHMConfig" "true"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

# keyboard added by rhpxl
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "nvidia"
Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Videocard0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "Enable"
EndSection

Now you can use gsynaptic and select tapping etc from there..

Explanation ::

I tried a few stunts.. This is what i got.. when i edit the xorg.conf without enabling tapping with gsynaptics, tapping functions till the login window.. not any further.. therefore the lines added in the xorg.conf ( other than the SHM one) enable tapping outside gnome.. while selecting it from gsynaptics enables it in GNOME..Hopefully this will work for you..As it did for me..

Please leave a comment informing me if it worked or not..