Pinebook Hacks

Table of Contents

Disable Touchpad while Typing
Configure Touchpad

In my previous article I described how to get going with a pinebook.

Here are a few pinebook-specific hacks to follow up.

Disclaimer:
It seems I have settled on armbian's pinebook edition for good (but I will mention it if that changes), and if there's anything distro-specific in here, it's specific to that distro.

Disable Touchpad while Typing ∆

Somebody posted a python script on pine64 forums, which I have very slightly improved. It requires root privileges, but by making it executable it is easier to add it to /etc/sudoers:

username ALL=NOPASSWD: <comma-separated list of programs with full path>

So, if you already have a line like this, append a comma and the full path to the script. Otherwise, append that line. Then add the following command to your Startup Applications:

sudo /full/path/to/disable-touchpad.py

Of course you can call that script whatever you want.

Configure Touchpad ∆

The touchpad is extremely fidgety and jumpy on both armbian's pinebook edition and pine64's own Ubuntu Mate, but not on Q4OS for pinebook.
I managed to find the configuration file (only to find that it was originally taken from longsleep's pine64 image - apparently this got lost in ayufan's builds) and saved it as /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-touchpad.conf:

xorg.conf
Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "HAILUCK CO.,LTD USB KEYBOARD"
        MatchIsPointer "1"
        MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
        Option "AccelerationProfile" "2"
        Option "AdaptiveDeceleration" "1"
        Option "ConstantDeceleration" "2.4" # Pinebook 14"
        #Option "ConstantDeceleration" "1.2" # Pinebook 11"
EndSection

Log out/in => much better!

But I would really like to disable the bottom 1-2 centimeters of the touchpad, because that's where the two buttons are, and it is almost impossible to press a button without simultaneously moving the pointer.

As far as I understand, the touchpad is not compatible with synaptics. Configurable properties can be listed with:

xinput list-props 8

where '8' is the ID of the touchpad. You can see for yourself by simply typing xinput.

But I have not yet found a way to disable the bottom part of the touchpad (where the buttons are)...

I will edit this post if I find a solution.