How to fix palm rejection on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS?

Question

I recently downloaded Ubuntu on my Dell Inspiron 7559 laptop, and I've noticed the palm rejection acting up. The software works ts partially; the cursor does not move when I try to use the track pad with my palm, so it clearly recognizes my palm, but when I place my palm on the track pad, not necessarily tapping, just placing it there, a click will occur automatically. This causes windows to disappear, so I have to hunt for them in order to get them back.

This is a specifically weird problem I haven't been able to find anyone else having. I dual boot Windows and Ubuntu and I do not have this problem when I boot Windows 10. So is there a setting I can change or a driver I can update? Any help would be appreciated.

Edit:

I checked my devices using xinput list, and I noticed I apparently had 2 touchpad inputs:

↳ ELAN1010:00 04F3:3012 Touchpad id=12 [slave pointer (2)]

↳ ETPS/2 Elantech Touchpad id=14 [slave pointer (2)]

So is the OS listening to the wrong driver? And if so, how do I get it to use the correct one?

Answer 1

First, you want to find your touch pad driver. You can do so by typing under terminal:

xinput

There you will receive a list of drivers. Under list Virtual core pointer, look for keyword TouchPad. That variable will be the {id} e.g. mine is "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad".

Next go to Startup Applications Preferences, select "Add", you can put whatever for the name, I used "Palm Detection", and for the cmd you want to put:

xinput set-prop "{id}" "Synaptics Palm Detection" 1

Also, add another one to set the dimensions. Call it "Palm Dimensions" (you can replace the value as you wish, you might want to play with the value to get the best experience):

xinput set-prop "{id}" "Synaptics Palm Dimensions" 3, 3

Now you can reboot your laptop and good luck :)

P.S. I think the correct touch pad id to use is the one starting with ETPS/2. If not you can just try both and hopefully that will work.

Answer 2

For my XPS 13 2017 with Ubuntu 16.04 the solution is to install dconf-editor and go to

org > gnome > desktop > peripherals > touchpad

and set click-method to fingers or if the key disable-while-typing is available, just set it to true.

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Another solution is to add new shortcuts by going to Keyboard > Shortcuts > Custom Shortcuts. My shortcuts are

Ctrl + Shift + M -> gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.touchpad tap-to-click true

Ctrl + Shift + N -> gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.touchpad tap-to-click false

So whenever you want to enable tap to click, just press Ctrl+Shift+M and Ctrl +Shift +N to disable it.