syndaemon-netbsd : a program to disable a synaptics-compatible trackpad while typing

thezerobit <[email protected]> Mon, 25 May 2026 22:13:29 +0000
Newsgroups gmane.os.netbsd.general
Message-ID <[email protected]>
Hi,
I hacked syndaemon to work on NetBSD. Codeberg page: 
https://codeberg.org/thezerobit/syndaemon-netbsd . Direct download: 
https://codeberg.org/thezerobit/syndaemon-netbsd/archive/main.tar.gz

If you don't know what syndaemon is, it's a little daemon that pays 
attention to keyboard activity in X and disables the trackpad while you 
are typing. This is to prevent unintentional mouse movements and clicks 
on laptop trackpads located just below the keyboard. This is pretty much 
essential when working on my Thinkpad T580. There is a README.txt in the 
repo which explains how to compile and use the tool.

The reason this is a bit of a hack is that the only way to safely 
disable the trackpad that I could find was to set the sysctl variable 
"hw.synaptics.finger_high" to a high enough value that the driver no 
longer registers interaction. Feel free to contact me directly with 
feedback or suggestions on how to improve it or if you need help getting 
it working.

-thezerobit