Disable touchpad when plugging in mouse

[Christian González]

I hate it when I write on my laptop and by hand is accidentially touching the touchpad with my wrist, the cursor ist placed anywhere, and i have to recover the scrambled text then.
In GNOME3 there is an option to disable the touchpad when typing, but this doesn't help in some cases - at least the time after typing before the TP gets enabled again is to short IMHO.

This is an idea at <a href="http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/554">Ubuntu brainstorm</a> as well.
There is a simple and relatively easy-to-implement solution for Fedora <a href="http://www.howtoforge.com/how-to-auto-disable-the-touchpad-when-the-mouse-is-plugged-in-fedora-13">here</a>.

This would be applicable to Ubuntu as well (as the comments say) - only the text "PS/2 Generic Mouse", "USB Optical Mouse" etc. may be different ("The enable/disable commands may be different for different hardware").
Maybe there is another (better?) solution to find out what device is connected with udev.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: xserver-xorg 1:7.6+7ubuntu7
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-12.19-generic 3.0.4
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-12-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: wl
.tmp.unity.support.test.0:

ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu2
Architecture: amd64
CompizPlugins: [core,bailer,detection,composite,opengl,compiztoolbox,decor,place,vpswitch,snap,gnomecompat,resize,regex,session,mousepoll,imgpng,grid,move,animation,wall,expo,fade,unitymtgrabhandles,scale,ezoom,workarounds,unityshell]
CompositorRunning: compiz
Date: Sat Oct 8 07:31:39 2011
DistUpgraded: Log time: 2011-10-07 22:09:18.896581
DistroCodename: oneiric
DistroVariant: ubuntu
DkmsStatus:
 bcmwl, 5.100.82.38+bdcom, 2.6.38-11-generic, x86_64: installed
 bcmwl, 5.100.82.38+bdcom, 3.0.0-12-generic, x86_64: installed
 psmouse, elantech-v6, 2.6.38-11-generic, x86_64: installed
 psmouse, elantech-v6, 3.0.0-12-generic, x86_64: installed
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
ExtraDebuggingInterest: No
GraphicsCard:
 Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:0116] (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
   Subsystem: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd Device [144d:c0a5]
   Subsystem: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd Device [144d:c0a5]
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Release amd64 (20110427.1)
MachineType: SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD. RF511/RF411/RF711
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=de:en
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=de_AT.UTF-8
 LC_MESSAGES=de_DE.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-3.0.0-12-generic root=UUID=6b2fb13e-4cc7-4369-9e49-dec252b9a629 ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
SourcePackage: xorg
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to oneiric on 2011-10-07 (0 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 04/26/2011
dmi.bios.vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
dmi.bios.version: 10HX.M034.20110426.SSH
dmi.board.asset.tag: To be filled by O.E.M.
dmi.board.name: RF511/RF411/RF711
dmi.board.vendor: SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD.
dmi.board.version: 10HX
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: No Asset Tag
dmi.chassis.type: 9
dmi.chassis.vendor: SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD.
dmi.chassis.version: N/A
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAmericanMegatrendsInc.:bvr10HX.M034.20110426.SSH:bd04/26/2011:svnSAMSUNGELECTRONICSCO.,LTD.:pnRF511/RF411/RF711:pvr10HX:rvnSAMSUNGELECTRONICSCO.,LTD.:rnRF511/RF411/RF711:rvr10HX:cvnSAMSUNGELECTRONICSCO.,LTD.:ct9:cvrN/A:
dmi.product.name: RF511/RF411/RF711
dmi.product.version: 10HX
dmi.sys.vendor: SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD.
version.compiz: compiz 1:0.9.6+bzr20110929-0ubuntu3
version.ia32-libs: ia32-libs 20090808ubuntu25
version.libdrm2: libdrm2 2.4.26-1ubuntu1
version.libgl1-mesa-dri: libgl1-mesa-dri 7.11-0ubuntu3
version.libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental: libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental N/A
version.libgl1-mesa-glx: libgl1-mesa-glx 7.11-0ubuntu3
version.xserver-xorg: xserver-xorg 1:7.6+7ubuntu7
version.xserver-xorg-input-evdev: xserver-xorg-input-evdev 1:2.6.0-1ubuntu13
version.xserver-xorg-video-ati: xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:6.14.99~git20110811.g93fc084-0ubuntu1
version.xserver-xorg-video-intel: xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.15.901-1ubuntu2
version.xserver-xorg-video-nouveau: xserver-xorg-video-nouveau 1:0.0.16+git20110411+8378443-1

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Hey droetker,

Hi, thanks for reporting this issue during the development period of
Ubuntu.

I notice there's not been further comments to the bug report since the
release came out, would you mind updating us on the status of it in the
release?

Are you still able to reproduce the issue? If not, do you think the bug
report can be closed, or do you think we should continue tracking it?

[Christian González (droetker)]

Maybe it's intended and not a bug, or just a missing feature (tag wishlist), but there has nothing changed since the creation of this report. So don't close it, as there is nothing changed - if you need futher information to fix it, I'm here.
But I think it is clear?

[Borim (borim)]

It seems this is a wish, that lives for a long time. In Bug #116919 additional approaches are listed to disable the touchpad, when plugging a mouse.

For my Lenovo x121e the udev rule, provided by Bug #116919 does not work out of the box and I did not find the problem, yet. But for sure it would be great, if a "disable touchpad, when usb mouse is plugged" option would exist.