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2

I have a small problem! A week ago, I spill my cup cafer on my laptop keyboard... Half of the key no longer works.
Except one! the letter "Q" which is very active regularly. What is very disturbing as I work.

You would know a way to disable the internal keyboard of a laptop.
I'm on Ubuntu 11.10

EDIT
This is not possible whit "xmodmap" ?

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What brand and model laptop is it? – Mitch Aug 21 '12 at 21:18
it's HP pavilion dv9000 – atmon3r Aug 21 '12 at 21:31
2  
The most straightforward way would be to lift the keyboard and disconnect it from the motherboard. You can then place it right back down where it was, sans the connection. This way the keyboard will be disabled after reinstalls and you wont need to bother with software. See this link, about halfway down the page where it gets to the keyboard: insidemylaptop.com/… – Mark Paskal Aug 21 '12 at 22:00

migrated from stackoverflow.com Jul 7 '12 at 22:05

4 Answers

up vote 6 down vote accepted
+50

You can use xinput to float the input device under X.

$ xinput list
⎡ Virtual core pointer                      id=2    [master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer                id=4    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad                id=11   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Logitech USB-PS/2 Optical Mouse           id=12   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Logitech Unifying Device. Wireless PID:4004   id=13   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                     id=3    [master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard               id=5    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                              id=6    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Video Bus                                 id=7    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Sleep Button                              id=8    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Acer CrystalEye webcam                    id=9    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard              id=10   [slave  keyboard (3)]
$ xinput float 10
$ xinput list
⎡ Virtual core pointer                      id=2    [master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer                id=4    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad                id=11   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Logitech USB-PS/2 Optical Mouse           id=12   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Logitech Unifying Device. Wireless PID:4004   id=13   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                     id=3    [master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard               id=5    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                              id=6    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Video Bus                                 id=7    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Sleep Button                              id=8    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Acer CrystalEye webcam                    id=9    [slave  keyboard (3)]
∼ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard              id=10   [floating slave]
share|improve this answer
I am interested by this solution! my xinput pastebin.com/puDxQaZ8 so I guess that would be it: xinput float 14 This query is reversible? how to enable keyboard after this? – atmon3r Aug 21 '12 at 22:23
You would use the reattach argument to reattach it. xinput reattach 14 3 – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Aug 21 '12 at 22:25
Perfect! this is exactly what I needed, you get my bounty =) – atmon3r Aug 22 '12 at 20:31
Perfect answer - was looking for this too. any of the keys on my laptop stopped working so now keep an external keyboard over it and it kept pressing the control key and what not. This fixed it up, thanks! – asymptotically Dec 15 '12 at 22:08
up vote 3 down vote

I thought of 2 ways you can do this:

  1. By setting up a wrong model for your laptop keyboard in xorg.conf ?

  2. By installing Lock-keyboard-for-Baby

`Lock-keyboard-for-Baby or lk4b in short, is a small program which locks your keyboard but leaves your mouse free. I wrote it because my niece likes to bash away at my keyboard whenever she sees me sit down at it. Keys typed on a keyboard can have disastrous consequences and I didn't want to lock my screen all the time with a screensaver.

When started, lock-keyboard-for-baby opens a small window which grabs the keyboard and echos keys which are typed. By default, it tells you what to type to quit ("Quit Now").

Unlike a screensaver, your screen is not blocked and the mouse still partially works, so you can still see what is on your screen - keep watching tv / video and/or read a document using the mouse to scroll.`

Requirements:

· GTK >= 2.x · perl GTK2 bindings (perl-gtk2 or gtk2-perl depending on your system)

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this is not exactly what I need, I need to use my usb keyboard, but your code is very useful! ;) – atmon3r Aug 21 '12 at 22:28
Lock-keyboard-for-Baby will let you disable your internal keyboard while mainting the use of the external – LnxSlck Aug 22 '12 at 0:49
up vote 2 down vote

Try running xmodmap -e 'keycode 24=' to disable just the Q key. If that works, you could add it it to your ~/.bashrc or global /etc/bash.bashrc file. I got this idea from here, which shows all the key-mappings.

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up vote 2 down vote

One sure way to disable it is to unplug the signal cable. You need to pop up the keyboard for that. For information on how to do that, check out the Maintenance and Service Guide for the HP Pavilion dv9000 and dv9200 Notebook PC .

Now there is a way to disable the keyboard using xinput. T do that, just press Ctrl+Alt+T on your keyboard to open Terminal. When it opens, run the commands below.

To list the devices your X

xinput --list

To disable the keyboard: 

xinput set-int-prop 2 "Device Enabled" 8 0

To enable the keyboard again: 

xinput set-int-prop 2 "Device Enabled" 8 1

If you get a error about permissions, use the commands above with sudo.

If you're interested in buying a new keyboard for your laptop, you can get it at Hp-Laptop-keyboard.co.uk

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