Pinebook Hacks

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.