As I wrote in an earlier post, the ambient light button on HP EliteBooks is per default mapped to switch off the touch pad. Since it’s placed right next to the function keys that increase or decrease the screen brightness, it happens quite often that the key is hit by accident.
If you’re running KDE, hitting Fn+F11 not only switches off the touch pad. You can’t even re-enable it with the System Settings manager, since System Settings -> Input Devices -> Touchpad manipulates ~/.kde/share/config/kcmtouchpadrc but the touch pad is disabled in ~/.kde/share/config/ktouchpadenablerrc.
To re-enable the touch pad, open ~/.kde/share/config/ktouchpadenablerrc with an editor and change it to
[general] touchpadEnabled=true
Thanks so much for this..
Was @ .kde4 but your post definitely helped me solve this annoying issue.
@Andy Thanks for your comment. I just double-checked, it’s .kde here, but that may be due to the fact, that I’ve been using my profile for ages.
Thanks! I had forgotten this.. My 7-year daughter was waiting for her super nerd daddy to fix a minor issue in her updated Sabayon/KDE. Daddy is happy again, this works 🙂
Thanks a bunch… On my HP there’s a button above the touch pad. In Windows its a simple matter of turning it on or off via the button. When I did this in Kubuntu I couldn’t re enable the touchpad.
Your solution worked and your instructions were clear and concise. Thank you again.
Yeah but the problem is it should be fixable by toggling the button on the keyboard. This is poor design for KDE and should be changed.
What du you mean with “open”? Open where?
What du you mean with “open”? Open where?