Comment 64 for bug 337935

I'll try. The current docs describe how you should place a file in /etc/hal/fdi/policy/ in order to enable tapping and two-finger scrolling and such stuff. While this is still true for the initial settings of the X server, once a user logs in, gnome-settings-daemon overwrites these initial settings with settings derived from the user configuration. I'm not sure how other desktop environments, in particular KDE, would deal with this situation, so perhaps there should be a note about the fact that initial config is determined by a hal fdi policy file.

Gnome users shouldn't have to bother, though. Instead, they could run gnome-mouse-properties, choose the Touchpad tab, and enable tap to click, choose two-finger scrolling as their desired scroll method, and also enable horizontal scrolling. Settings will take effect immediately. If tap to click is enabled, tap and drag (discussed in bug #356317) seems to work out of the box.

The current settings of these configuration items can also be obtained on the command line:
gconftool -R /desktop/gnome/peripherals/touchpad
The output might be useful in bug reports. Of course it would also be possible to set these values programmatically, but I guess there is little point for most users.

gnome-settings-daemon communicates with the device driver through X device properties, listed in the synaptics(4) man page, as does synclient without the -s. Therefore users can install synclient to have a look at current configuration ("synclient -l"), and to change settings not readily accessible through the Gnome control center, like e.g. circular scrolling. I don't know what would be the most gnomish way to make such settings persistent on a per-user basis, though. fdi files would work for these as well, I guess.

One thing that still doesn't work as expected is the button integrated into the touchpad. Under OS X, I can use one finger to move the cursor and another finger to press the front part of the touchpad, generating a left or right click depending on the part of the touchpad I pressed. On Ubuntu, both fingers contribute to cursor movement, and the button always works as button 1. So in that respect, the touchpad is still not fully functional on Karmic beta. Want a separate report for that aspect?