So, this is like one of those posts where no one else needs the solution to... my laptop touchpad has a shorted button (kids, water...you get teh picture), and I don't have teh funding to buy a replacement part yet.

I turn off the touchpad through the hardware buttons, even toggle the software settings to not use the touchpad, but whenever Neon starts up, the TP is on and therefore I can't click on anything. I then have to turn it off using hte hardware button and reboot again.

So, what is it about Neon that is doing this? Win ignores the Touchpad, so does Mint KDE, just not Neon.

dngrsone wrote:So, this is like one of those posts where no one else needs the solution to... my laptop touchpad has a shorted button (kids, water...you get teh picture), and I don't have teh funding to buy a replacement part yet.

I turn off the touchpad through the hardware buttons, even toggle the software settings to not use the touchpad, but whenever Neon starts up, the TP is on and therefore I can't click on anything. I then have to turn it off using hte hardware button and reboot again.

So, what is it about Neon that is doing this? Win ignores the Touchpad, so does Mint KDE, just not Neon.

Try going to Settings > Input Devices > Touchpad settings

From there is a tab called Enable/Disable Touchpad where you should be able to turn it off.

So, it turns out that the battery I just installed has just plain given up, so the UEFI forgets the previous settings.

If I leave the laptop plugged in, there isn't a problem; but it looks like I'm doing to have to crack open the case and do something about this battery if I want to use it as an actual laptop..

@dbergstein gave you the solution, regardless of your battery and UEFI settings. I have a laptop with a touchpad and I hate typing on the keyboard and the touchpad moving my cursor and making me type where I didn't intend to. So I too have that turned off in KDE settings. dbergstein's advice will not only be persistent between power off's but will also be persistent between OS reinstalls, as long as you don't format your /home partition.