How do I enable my synaptics trackpad?

This is tested on Ubuntu 11.10, I don't seem to need it for 12.04.

Note, this involved adding a third-party PPA - proceed with caution.

More on the dangers of PPAs here.

First, make sure we're both experiencing the same problem. Run the following in a terminal:

cat /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-synaptics.conf

You should see something like the following:

Section "InputClass"

   Identifier "touchpad catchall"

   Driver "synaptics"

   MatchIsTouchpad "on"

Now, you need to add the PPA - for precise instructions on how to do that, take a look here.

The PPA you need to add is ppa:sergio91pt/synaptics+clickpads

Now, update your system - run the following in the terminal:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

What that command does:

First part updates your system software list - this tells the computer where the software is that it needs to download.

The second part does the actual update of your system software.

Once that's done, reboot your computer - your trackpad should be working now.

After the reboot, you'll want to update/tweak your touchpad settings.

Head to System Settings > Mouse and Touchpad, and then switch to the touchpad tab, and you'll see something like this:

You can play around with those settings as much as you want, just so you can figure out what works best for you.