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Synaptic touchpads used to support a three finger tap for middle clicking in Ubuntu 10.10 (same as clicking the scroll wheel on a mouse.)

This critical functionality is broken in Ubuntu 11.10

How can I restore middle clicking on a touchpad?

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Odd, I never had this functionality with my two Synaptic touchpads... – jrg♦ Dec 3 '11 at 23:26
Duplicate of askubuntu.com/questions/64158/… – kilaka Feb 22 '12 at 7:23
See and vote for the bug: bugs.launchpad.net/utouch/+bug/754000 – kilaka Feb 22 '12 at 7:54

3 Answers

up vote 2 down vote

The problem is with the ubuntu patches against xserver-xorg-input-synaptics package.

The solution to the problem is simple - just replace the ubuntu-provided package with one without those patches.

Here's how:

Download the appropriate Debian package from this site (choose your architecture, either i386 or amd64):

http://packages.debian.org/squeeze-backports/xserver-xorg-input-synaptics

Then remove the original package from your system and replace it with the one downloaded. Reboot the system and 3-finger tapping should be working again.

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Has anyone tried this? The person answering the question has too little score to take the risk. – kilaka Feb 22 '12 at 7:15
Whatever "too little score to take the risk" is supposed to mean, I edited the post to add the correct package link. And yes, it works. – Alexandre Apr 12 '12 at 16:17
up vote 1 down vote

Just found an amazing thing: Taping on the top right corner of the touchpad is like clicking the middle mouse button. I know it's not the same as the triple click and position accuracy is needed :( but it's the closest I could find to triple click.

BTW, clicking on the lower right corner is like clicking the the right mouse button.

Source: http://askubuntu.com/a/106444/13330

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up vote 1 down vote

You could use a commandline programme called "synclient", which should be already on your system.

synclient Tapbutton3=2

where "Tapbutton3" means a Two-Finger Tap, and the 2 is for middle click.

This method only works until restart (or some other mousesettings-program overrides it). To get this functionality permanently, put this in /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-synaptics.conf before "EndSection"

Option "TapButton3" "2"
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Commandline works fine, but only till log out, as you say. But editing 50-synaptics.conf doesn't anything. Shell it on 12.04? The Option "Ignore" should be "on" then? Is it important: spaces, tabs, little/great letters? – user60385 May 4 '12 at 14:44
try adding Option "SHMConfig" "on" after the 'ignore' option and restart – marto May 4 '12 at 19:55
Fixed a typo -- should read "TapButton". However, I just tried changing some settings on my new 12.04 xubuntu install -> 50-synaptics does nothing :( – marto May 4 '12 at 23:15
@marto At the top of 50-synaptics.conf there is a note saying not to edit it- copy it into /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d (you'll probably have to make the directory yourself). Once you do this, edit the copied file. – Lambda Knight Oct 18 '12 at 22:22

protected by Community♦ May 4 '12 at 15:38

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