This brief tutorial shows you how to change your laptop touchpad tap actions in Ubuntu, including single tap, two and three finger tap as well as tap on corners..

I’m only using single tap and touchpad scrolling feature on my laptop. As you may know, Ubuntu acts as middle click when tapping on top-right corner of touchpad. It is annoying that I was always ‘corner-tapping’ on my Google Chrome tabs, and they vanished all of a sudden. More over, two finger tap brings up righ-click menu, quick tapping twice on title-bar, browser tabs allows to move items. Due to these useless and annoying tap actions (only for me), I’m determined to tweak my touchpad settings. That’s why I’m writting this tutorial.

The default Mouse & Touchpad utility in Ubuntu Unity is getting better now, but it’s not powerful enough. So far it only has the ability to switch on / off touchpad, Tap to click, Disable while typing, Two finger scroll, Contents sticks to fingers as well as point speed settings.

I found synaptiks, which is a simple utility that covers almost all settings of Synaptics Touchpad, including multi-tapping, tapping on corners. It is available on Ubuntu Software Center by default since Ubuntu 12.04 Precise. Click link below to install it:

Install Synaptiks Touchpad Configuration

When installed, open the tool and go to Touchpad Configuration -> Tapping. There provides options to change tapping on 4 corners, single tap, two finger tap, three finger tap, drag items by tapping, etc.