How do I disable the touchscreen drivers?

You can try disabling the input device with the xinput command. First see what input devices you have, just type:

xinput

And you should see a list like:

$ xinput 
⎡ Virtual core pointer                      id=2    [master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer                id=4    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Atmel Atmel maXTouch Digitizer            id=9    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint                     id=13   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad                id=12   [slave  pointer  (2)]
...

Then you can disable the input device you want with this command:

xinput disable 9

Where 9 is the id of the device you want to disable. You can also use the device name between quotes.

In xinput version 1.5.99.1 , you need to do xinput set-prop 9 'Device Enabled' 0 instead. Oddly on xinput v1.6.2 the first way work.

The xinput solution did not work for me. I instead followed the instructions in this thread. This will disable it at boot time.

1. Edit /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-evdev.conf
2. Add Option "Ignore" "on" to the end of the section with the touchscreen identifier
3. Reboot

• For the record (Google), I have a Samsung Series 7 and my touch screen was listed as ELAN Touchscreen in xinput.
• JFTR too, in this question says the power consumption difference is mostly negligible.

Edit file the file with

sudo nano /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-evdev.conf

Change MatchIsTouchscreen from "on" to "off" in the Touchscreen section so it looks like this:

Section "InputClass"
    Identifier "evdev touchscreen catchall"
    MatchIsTouchscreen "off"
    MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
    Driver "evdev"
    EndSection

Save, Name and Exit

Touchscreen is disabled and no longer detected in xinput list.