MacBook Pro Touchpad Optimization 12.04 LTS

Question

I'm running Ubuntu 12.04 LTS on a MacBook Pro 5.5. I'm just wondering if there is something that takes all the kinks out of the touch-pad. It works good, but it feels sluggish, double tap works about 75% of the time and sometimes while I it somehow selects something on a different page (although I'm not sure if that has to deal with the touch-pad and not weird laptop bugs for a new LTS)

If there are any programs, apps, commands aside from the built in system preferences > mouse and track-pad > touch-pad menu that allow someone to "optimize" touch-pad potential, it would be greatly appreciated. If not let me know as well, if it's not too much trouble.

=) thanks in advance

Answer 1

You can modify the relevant section of the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf. If the file doesn't exist, create one. An example file to show you the proper format is this:

Section "InputClass"
    Identifier         "Touchpad"
    Driver             "synaptics"
    MatchIsTouchpad    "on"
    Option         "ClickFinger3" "2"
    Option         "HorizTwoFingerScroll" "1"
    Option         "VertScrollDelta" "85"
    Option         "HorizScrollDelta" "85"
    Option         "TapButton1" "0"
    Option         "TapButton2" "0"
    Option         "TapButton3" "0"
    Option         "FingerHigh" "8"
    Option         "FingerLow" "8"
EndSection

You can delete, modify, or add option lines. Here are some frequently used options. (The link refers to another file, but don't worry about that; the path I gave will do the same thing)

Since it's cumbersome to restart each time to test your configuration, I recommend using synclient at the command line. Here's another Arch wiki link that explains how to use synclient. Besides using it to test values for options, you can also see what the default values are for the options you didn't set.

Answer 2

Great adjustement Chan-Ho Suh, you can do this changes to get "Natual scrolling":

Option "VertScrollDelta" "-85" and Option "HorizScrollDelta" "-85"

Answer 3

I found an excellent solution in the forums a couple of days ago specifically for macbooks, if it doesn't feel sensitive add this to your startup

synclient FingerLow=10; synclient FingerHigh=20

Place any name and add that as your command and that's it.