415364 – Setting to disable when mouse is plugged in is missing when using Libinput driver
bugs.kde.org

I thought it would be great to spread awareness about this issue, hence I’m sharing it with you here.

In X11 there is a nice feature called “Turn off touchpad while mouse is plugged in” - it’s a lifesaver when you have a laptop with big touchpad; me and lots of people with this issue accidentally hit it all the time while typing.

Plasma X11 touchpad settings

However in Wayland this setting is missing. After some digging people found out that this is not an issue with the libinput driver itself (used for touchpads on Wayland), as it is supporting this feature for a while now; rather it’s an issue with the settings app itself, simply not implementing this feature while using Wayland.

Hope this will get attention from the community, as the recognition from the dev’s side is minimal.

  • Bacteria
    61•2 years ago

    That’s just one specific issue. It doesn’t mean that the whole plasma wayland session is a pain. Been using it for more than a year now.

    • @JokaJukka@lemmy.worldOP
      9•2 years ago

      I do agree, and I’ve never said that. All I’m saying is that Plasma Wayland on laptops is for many people pain to use (and it looks like many agree with me here too).

      I do believe that this should be resolved as Plasma 6 is shifting towards Wayland-first approach, and this would annoy most laptop users.

      • Rustmilian
        4•2 years ago

        Never been an issue for me; didn’t even know that the setting was missing.

  • @moreeni@lemm.ee
    6•2 years ago

    The only time I could describe my experience with Plasma Wayland on laptop as painful was when Zoom was constantly crashing when I tried to screen share and it wasn’t even Plasma’s fault. So don’t exaggerate, Wayland session has its problems and the dev team is aware of it but generally it is usable for most people

  • dinckel
    5•2 years ago

    If anything, plasma on a laptop specifically had been more usable a considerable amount of time before it became usable on desktop, due to a whole range of reasons. The touchpad has never been an issue for me, but depending on how yours works, it could be problematic

  • meow
    2•2 years ago

    me and lots of people with this issue accidentally hit it all the time while typing.

    Can’t you just use the disable while typing setting?

    • @JokaJukka@lemmy.worldOP
      2•2 years ago

      I’ve checked and not only for me this setting does not seem to work on Wayland. It is briefly mentioned in the linked bug report.

        • @moreeni@lemm.ee
          1•2 years ago

          I discovered it when playing Minetest and had to use trackpad for 2 days until I finally discovered I can just disable that setting

      • Hildegarde
        2•2 years ago

        It works for me on wayland. I’m running KDE Plasma Version: 5.27.7.

  • @MaliciousKebab@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    2•2 years ago

    Well, even when using X11 I preferred manually toggling my touchpad, but usually my mouse stays plugged for more than a few days so even then it doesn’t bother me that much to just toggle it once a week maybe. Not to invalidate the problem, it’s just how my experience is with wayland currently.