touchpad configuration not working (disable or change 2 tap right click) macbook air

Question

I recently installed linux on a macbook air (early 2014) and am trying to tweak the touchpad so that its actually usable.

I have noticed the following:

1) I frequently get accidental right click menus that pop up randomly while surfing the web. It seems the touchpad is very sensitive and I want this to stop.

2) I can move the cursor around with 1 finger moving around the touch pad but as soon as I place another finger or part of my hand (often by accident) on the touch pad all navigation stops and I cannot move the cursor so long as more than one piece of flesh is touching the touchpad. I do not want this to happen and don't know how to prevent this. MacOS is not as restrictive like this.

To address #1, I tried the suggestion at the link below, which attempts to change the default right-click mechanism to that of MacOS which is a button+click.

https://www.void.gr/kargig/blog/2009/06/11/handling-right-clicks-on-a-macbook-running-linux/

However, that did not work. When I click on the COMMAND key the Linux Mint menu pops up instead. The right-click functionality is unchanged and remains the 2 finger tap.

I also placed the following in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-synaptics.conf:

Option "TapButton2" "0"

Like so:

Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "touchpad catchall"
        Driver "synaptics"
        MatchIsTouchpad "on"
# This option is recommend on all Linux systems using evdev, but cannot be
# enabled by default. See the following link for details:
# http://who-t.blogspot.com/2010/11/how-to-ignore-configuration-errors.html
       MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
       Option "TapButton2" "0"
EndSection

However, that did not do anything and when I run synclient -l I still see:

TapButton1              = 1
TapButton2              = 3
TapButton3              = 2

I also checked the /var/log/Xorg.0.log and I do see that the TapButton2 =0 got picked up but it hasnt taken effect because I can still right click by clicking the touchpad with 2 fingers.

[     9.240] (**) Option "TapButton2" "0"

At this point I'm not sure whether its even possible to properly configure the touch pad as it seems simple configuration changes don't work.

Answer 1

I had similar problems on MacBook Pro (8,1) with Ubuntu 15.04 (and on earlier releases). For a short term fix try using synclient directly, e.g., synclient TapButton2=0. I made my changes permanent by copying /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-synaptics.conf to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-synaptics.conf (I don't think you are supposed to edit the former). At the bottom of the new file, include a new section

    Section "InputClass"
            Identifier "Set TB2 to 0"
            MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
            Option "TapButton2" "0"
    EndSection

You may need to reboot. Finally, for my edits, instead of MatchDevicePath I copied the MatchProduct and MatchDriver information from a previous section in the file (not sure if this is necessary). Finally*2, tweaking the sensitivity (with FingerHigh or FingerLow) may help.