#!/bin/bash
# toggle synaptic touchpad on/off

# get current state
SYNSTATE=$(synclient -l | grep TouchpadOff | awk '{ print $3 }')

# change to other state
if [ $SYNSTATE = 0 ]; then
    synclient touchpadoff=1
elif [ $SYNSTATE = 1 ]; then
    synclient touchpadoff=0
else
    echo "Couldn't get touchpad status from synclient"
    exit 1
fi
exit 0

I'm trying to get the above script to run on startup. It's supposed to turn off the TouchPad on my notebook computer. I can't get it to run. The above file is stored in my Home directory as togglepad.sh.

I can turn off the TouchPad by entering synclient TouchpadOff=1 in the Konsole terminal. However, I have to do this every time I start up so I'd like the script to do it for me. The script is enabled and set to run on startup, but it doesn't run.

Does anyone have any suggestions for how to get this to run on startup?

Thank you.

Does it work if you run the script manually, e.g. ~/togglepad.sh ?

when I run "./togglepad.sh" I get

tom@DellNotebook:~$ ./togglepad.sh
./togglepad.sh: line 1: #!/bin/bash: No such file or directory
./togglepad.sh: line 11:  : command not found
tom@DellNotebook:~$

What is this telling me?

Thanks.

It is telling you that the Bash shell is not installed. Change

#!/bin/bash

to

#!/bin/sh

and try again. If it does not work, you have to install bash or a bash-compatible shell.

I changed "togglepad.sh" as follows:

#!/bin/sh
# toggle synaptic touchpad on/off

# get current state
SYNSTATE=$(synclient -l | grep TouchpadOff | awk '{ print $3 }')

# change to other state
if [ $SYNSTATE = 0 ]; then
    synclient touchpadoff=1
elif [ $SYNSTATE = 1 ]; then
    synclient touchpadoff=0
else
    echo "Couldn't get touchpad status from synclient"
    exit 1
fi
exit 0

It didn't work. The Konsole output was:

tom@DellNotebook:~$ ./togglepad.sh
./togglepad.sh: 15:  : not found
tom@DellNotebook:~$

It doesn't seem to like line 15 which contains "fi". I commented out "fi" and the terminal output said it couldn't find "fi".

"bash" is installed.

What to do? Thanks!

What does "which bash" say?

tom@DellNotebook:~$ which bash
/bin/bash
tom@DellNotebook:~$