How do I disable the TouchPad on a laptop, but keep mouse buttons active?

Question

I want to disable the touchpad of my Lenovo x240. If I use the settings GUI the mouse buttons get disabled, too.

How can I disable the touchpad mouse cursor movement, and keep the mouse buttons active?

Related, but I want to disable mouse movements completely:

Drivers for Lenovo Thinkpad S540 Touchpad (erratic mouse cursor)

I use Ubuntu 14.04 with xserver-xorg-input-synaptics version 1.7.4

Solution

Open gedit and copy-paste the following lines into it:

#!/bin/sh
# This script disables the touchpad without disabling buttons by setting Hysteresis
# to an impossible value.

############
# Warning! #
############
# If you have a touchpad with no "Physical" buttons but have to tap the corners 
# of your touchpad to simulate physical buttons, put a "#" sign in front of the next
# 4 lines!

synclient LTCornerButton=1
#synclient LBCornerButton=0
synclient RTCornerButton=3
#synclient RBCornerButton=0


# Set PalmDetect on: Needed if the before lines are commented away,
# Doesn't do any harm if they're not
synclient PalmDetect=1

synclient HorizHysteresis=10000 
synclient VertHysteresis=10000

# Disable all other touchpad features
synclient VertEdgeScroll=0
synclient HorizEdgeScroll=0
synclient CornerCoasting=0
synclient VertTwoFingerScroll=0
synclient HorizTwoFingerScroll=0
synclient TouchpadOff=2
synclient LockedDrags=0
synclient TapButton1=0
synclient TapButton2=0
synclient TapButton3=0
synclient CircularPad=0

Then save it as /usr/local/bin/DisableTouchPad.sh

In a terminal type:

chmod a+xr /usr/local/bin/DisableTouchPad.sh

To activate it type:

DisableTouchPad.sh

and test whether this works.

To make this change permanent, go to the dash, open "Startup Applications", click add, in the command type: /usr/local/bin/DisableTouchPad.sh and in the Name and Comment type anything that will remind you what this was about. Click add again.

Presto: a disabled touchpad with the buttons still enabled!

Comments

[guettli]

The synclient parameters are documented here: x.org/archive/X11R7.5/doc/man/man4/synaptics.4.html

[guettli]

Related: askubuntu.com/questions/370505/how-to-use-trackpoint-but-kee‌​p-touchpad-disabled-‌​on-lenovo-thinkpad-e‌​531

[Rohith Madhavan]

This method will also disable the mouse buttons and hence is not useful. synclient TouchpadOff=0 can be used to achieve the same as above.

[guettli]

@Philip I am sorry, your answer does not help. This disables the touchpad and the mouse buttons. The mouse buttons are just areas on the touchpad on the thinkpad x240. I ask myself how can anyone work with this device.. I use an external thinkpad keyboard now. But that's no good solution.

[guettli]

I did synclient MinSpeed=0and synclient MaxSpeed=0 but nothing changes. The touchpad works like before.

[guettli]

Here is the diff of synclient -l before and after your disable script. pastebin.com/zF9G8QLH

[Fabby]

that does not include the synclient Min and MaxSpeed above... (but it doesn't help anyway) Let me test an bit and I'll get back to you...

[Fabby]

OK. Here is one with the parameters your touchpad displays: To properly test, disable the script in the autostart, log out and log in again

[Fabby]

Please keep a mouse handy! Then type: synclient HorizHysteresis=10000 and synclient VertHysteresis=10000 report back

[Fabby]

The bounty period is over anyway, so you won't have to give your points to me... Upvoting my answer will at least give me some credit for all the work I put in here... :/

[guettli]

thank you for your work. I up voted your answer and I updated it. The script was missing some "synclient" strings. The touchpad is disabled now, and one button works. But Middle- or RightButton still does not work. I looked at the launchpad site of the xserver-xorg-input-synaptics package. There are 40 open bugs. I guess it won't work with the the default version shipped with Ubuntu 14.04

[Liso]

Thanks ! I got it working on my 16.04 box. Really need this feature :)