How do you disable your synaptic trackpad in Ubuntu

[mark-OGhnF3Lt4opAfugRpC6u6w at public.gmane.org (Mark J Dulcey)]

On 2/11/2010 10:30 AM, David Kramer wrote:
> One of the many issues I had upgrading to Karmic (I'm working on a
> comprehensive list) what the mouse configuration tool that comes with it
> no longer lets you disable the trackpad, which constantly makes the
> cursor jump while I'm typing due to my monstrous hands.  Ideally I would
> like it to default to off, but have the ability to reenable it on demand.
>
> I have tried TouchFreeze, and it doesn't actually disable the trackpad.
>   I also tried gpointing-device-settings, which actually works, but it's
> a GUI program I have to run from the command line, and the setting
> doesn't persist reboots, so I have to run it from the command line and
> choose the right options every time I reboot.
>
> I will skip (for now) my rant on how all of the tried and true config
> files everyone knows and understands are being taken away from us in the
> favor of "The software knows what to do" (isn't that how we got Windows?).
>
> Is there a better way?  Thanks.

My system doesn't even recognize the trackpad as a trackpad (it has a 
Alps trackpad, not a Synaptic), just as a PS/2 mouse, so 'sudo rmmod 
psmouse' is the way to turn it off. That doesn't persist across reboots, 
though I could put psmouse in the list of excluded modules to make it 
so. My USB mouse still works afterward.

If your system actually loads some sort of Synaptic-specific module you 
could unload that one instead.