How do I disable the touchpad in Ubuntu 17.10?

Question

I recently updated to 17.10 from 17.04 and now I have no way to disable the touchpad on my laptop. When I do Fn + F9 (in my case), I see the touchpad logo in the screen as it where disabled, but is not.

ASUS GL752

Answer 1

I had the same problem on my Asus X555UB, but I use the command synclient TouchpadOff=1 in @Legolas script. This works for me. source

Answer 2

I am not sure why they key is not working for your laptop. But I can suggest a general alternative.

Put the following code in a file, such as touchpad_toggle.sh:

#!/bin/bash
STATUS=`gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.touchpad send-events`
if [ "$STATUS" = "'enabled'" ]
then
    gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.touchpad send-events 'disabled'
else
    gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.touchpad send-events 'enabled'
fi

Grant the file executable permission:

chmod +x touchpad_toggle.sh

Add a keyboard shortcut to the file from Settings → Devices → Keyboard.

Answer 3

Based on answers from Fernando and Legolas, here's a script that works for me:

#!/bin/bash
synclient -l | grep TouchpadOff | grep 1
if [ $? == 0 ]; then
  synclient TouchpadOff=0
else 
  synclient TouchpadOff=1
fi