External touchpad for Ubuntu?

[Liam Proven]

On Sun, 20 Dec 2020 at 14:47, Owen Thomas <owen.paul.thomas at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I have a laptop computer, and, as I have explained many times before now, it annoys me no end that I cannot disable my touchpad.

Doing a quick search back, you've been asking about this repeatedly since 2017.

The thing is, you've been told where to find the option to disable it.
You've also been told how to assign a hotkey to disable it, and
another hotkey to re-enable it again.

You *can* disable your touchpad.

So I am not seeing what the problem is here.

Also, when you upgraded to 18.04, you did not like the move from Unity
to GNOME. I don't blame you at all; I didn't either.

But I think someone suggested maybe just reinstalling Unity and
switching back to it. That's what I did.

Unity makes turning the trackpad on and off very easy.

I almost exclusively use Lenovo Thinkpads, and have done since they
were IBM Thinkpads. These have _both_ trackpads _and_ trackpoint
"nipple mice". I leave the trackpad on if I'm working on a desk, but
if I'm using the machine in my lap or lying in bed, I disable trackpad
and use only the Trackpoint, the red nipple mouse.

My main laptop is a Thinkpad X220 which I bought used for £125 in
January 2017. It's still going strong, fast and capable.

I don't think you've ever mentioned what laptop you have except a
passing reference to a Dell. If I may make a suggestion, get an old
used Thinkpad, and try it. You might find that you just permanently
disable the trackpad and never look back.

Some Dells and Toshibas have them too, but inferior, less-accurate
versions, IMHO.

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