I also posted it to linuxquestions.org here:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?p=3393958#post3393958

This worked for me, to enable the Synaptics touchpad “gsynaptics” GUI configuration utility, and also the “synclient” command-line utility. In there, I can mercifully turn off tapping on the touchpad. No more ghost clicks!

Don’t edit your xorg.conf file. Instead, edit the HAL policy file, which autoloads the Synaptics driver on demand. It’s difficult to edit the xorg.conf file directly, because the input device number can be different each time. This is the file, which should already exist if you installed the “xorg-x11-drv-synaptics” package:

/usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/20thirdparty/10-synaptics.fdi

Here’s the contents of the file:

[QUOTE]

synaptics
on

synaptics
on

synaptics
on

synaptics
on

[/QUOTE]

Basically, what you do is take the existing file, and add the x11_options lines, just below all of the x11_driver lines. This forces HAL to stuff in the correct options to the driver, as it loads. Very handy!

You might have to reboot in order to get HAL and X to all completely reload. You can see the results in the /var/log/Xorg.0.log file:

[QUOTE](II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/input//synaptics_drv.so
(II) Module synaptics: vendor=”X.Org Foundation”
compiled for 1.5.0, module version = 0.15.1
Module class: X.Org XInput Driver
ABI class: X.Org XInput driver, version 2.1
(II) Synaptics touchpad driver version 0.15.1
(II) SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad: x-axis range 1472 – 5472
(II) SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad: y-axis range 1408 – 4448
(**) Option “Device” “/dev/input/event6″
(**) Option “SHMConfig” “on”
(–) SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad touchpad found
(**) SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad: always reports core events
(II) XINPUT: Adding extended input device “SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad” (type: MOUSE)
(II) SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad: x-axis range 1472 – 5472
(II) SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad: y-axis range 1408 – 4448
(–) SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad touchpad found
[/QUOTE]

The line in the middle, about SHMConfig on, indicates success.

Take a look at this.
http://fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=194784

This was originally developed in response to F9′s _lack_ of tapping (and its suspend/resume problems), but the first five posts (2 and 5, in particular) effectively demonstrate how to alter your HAL FDI file for synaptics. This is preferred instead of changing your nonexistent xorg.conf.

To each his own, I suppose. I could not live without tap-to-click; on every laptop except a MacBook that I’ve tried, all laptop mouse buttons seem extremely cheap, and I’ve broken the buttons on my Dell after a year or two. I have touchpad-mouse-button-phobia now, and I’d much rather tap.

I created /etc/hal/fdi/policy/11-synaptics.fdi with the following contents:

20

(Hopefully the contents aren’t mangled too badly by wordpress.

The following is how I disabled tapping on my acer 4315. A complete HACK as gdm-stop doesn’t seem to work….

1) ctrl-alt-2 , login as root
2) chmod -x /usr/sbin/gdm && gdm-stop
3) X -configure
4) X -config /root/xorg.conf.new (to test)
5) modify the xorg.conf.new so the mouse driver is “synaptics” and an additional line to the mouse section:
Option “SHMConfig” “True”
6) cp /root/xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf
7) chmod +x /usr/sbin/gdm
yum install gsynaptics
9) gdm
10) login as your user
11) su – -c “gsynaptics”
12) turn off tapping in gsynaptics

First, a reason why it is so difficult. As part of the development to not have an xorg.conf file we’ve moved to hal based loading of input drivers, such as the synaptics driver. Unfortunately, this method of driver loading cannot currently pass options to the driver, such as the option to enable shmconfig. shmconfig is the method by which this driver gets configured at runtime, via tools such as gsynatics or synclient. This option isn’t enabled by default because it isn’t a very secure method, in fact I’m told it’s rather insecure. But for those of us that would like to tweak our our synaptic touch pads work, there is little alternative.

At a high level, one must create a minimal xorg.conf file that at least has an input section for the mouse, and enables SHMConfig. Next one must prevent hal from auto-loading the synaptic driver as this will undo any options put in the xorg.conf file. Lastly one must use a tool such as gsynaptics or synclient to adjust settings.

As for the xorg.conf file, the important part is:

Section “InputDevice”
Identifier “Synaptics”
Driver “synaptics”
Option “Device” “/dev/input/mice”
Option “Protocol” “auto-dev”
Option “Emulate3Buttons” “yes”
Option “SHMConfig” “True”
EndSection

That later needs to be included in a screen layout:

Section “ServerLayout”
Identifier “Default Layout”
#InputDevice “Keyboard0″ “CoreKeyboard”
InputDevice “Synaptics” “CorePointer”
EndSection

As for hal, either remove /usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/20thirdparty/10-synaptics.fdi or edit it in such a way that it does not load the synaptics driver.

Lastly restart X/hal (a reboot would suffice), then install/run gsynaptics or synclient to adjust your touchpad.

Pasting it into a text editor, removing leading spaces, and re-indenting should work, though..
-k-

Though my goal was to completely eliminate the touchpad. Once the SHMconfig is done, you should be good to go.

-k-