Typing blocks external mouse

[Andrew Hutchings]

Binary package hint: xserver-xorg-input-synaptics

Release: Hardy i386 up to date 19th April 2008
Hardware: Macbook Pro sec generation (core2duo, which has a built in usb trackpad) and any external usb mouse

Expected:
To be able to use the keyboard and external mouse at the same time.

Actual:
When pressing keys on the keyboard (apart from shift, ctrl, etc...) the mouse is paused for around a second.

Detailed:
When typing the mouse is disabled for around a second. I am assuming this is due to synaptics disabling the trackpad and taking the mouse out with it.
This is a problem because it means I can't play any games that require the mouse and the keyboard at the same time (ie. Nexuiz, Alien Arena, etc...).

It is also a productivity pain as I often use the keyboard to switch desktops and then the mouse for an application on the desktop I have switched to.

As a fix either the default needs to be to disable mouse clicks with touchpad as default and then remove the mouse pause, have some kind of degree of separation between the mouse and trackpad for this setting, or have an option in the mouse/trackpad config to enable/disable this.

[Andrew Hutchings (linuxjedi)]

Editing /etc/init.d/mouseemu and adding the following setting works as a temporary fix:
TYPING_BLOCK="-typing-block 0"

[Emmanuel Rodriguez (potyl)]

What's strange for me is that changing: Menu > System > Preference > Mouse > Touchpad > "Disable touchpad while typing" has no effect on the USB mouse. It does affect the touchpad but the mouse is always disabled after each keystroke.

This is very annoying and drives me nuts.

[Emmanuel Rodriguez (potyl)]

It's probably better to set the configuration variable in the main configuration file than in the init.d script.

Edit the file /etc/default/mouseemu and add:
TYPING_BLOCK="-typing-block 0"

[Stefan Lesicnik (stefanlsd)]

Finally found this bug to help with this problem - was also driving me crazy.

I wonder what the sane fix for this problem would be. I guess I would like to see preferences - mouse have the option like touchpads do. That from gnome upstream?