Keyboard-Touchpad-Mouse issues on MBP

Support & Help Requests
1

I am trying 18.04 Mate on a MBP. I am having the following issues:

  1. Cannot find a setting to switch the Command <-> Control keys.
  2. The touchpad is erratic.
  3. The mouse works well, but the scroll wheel is reversed.

Do I have some settings wrong? This is an older computer, perhaps a hardware issue? Or are these known issues?

Any help appreciated.

2

If you mean make the key that is labeled as command function as a ctrl key and the control key act as super/win, you can do it by opening Control Center > Keyboard > Layouts tab > Options… button then revealing Ctrl position and selecting

  • Swap Left Win with Left Ctrl
  • Swap Right Win with Right Ctrl

The default touchpad driver in 18.04 is libinput, which is actively supported and developed. Newer hardware tends to work better with this driver, but I've found that the some older touchpads, like my old MacBook's, work better with the legacy Synaptics driver. You can install it with

sudo apt install xserver-xorg-input-synaptics```

and then reboot to use it.

[quote]
The mouse works well, but the scroll wheel is reversed.
[/quote]

I don't believe MATE supports reverse ("natural") scrolling with a mouse. This is the bug for the issue: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/mate-settings-daemon/+bug/1698132
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3

I wasn’t able to swap the Command and Control keys. I tried anything that looked close. It’s a 2010 computer so it may be too old.

The touchpad works great now. I can live with the reverse scroll on the mouse. I’m primarily a touchpad user.

Really starting to like Linux.

Thanks so much for the reply.

4

You were correct. Swapping these keys did work.
But it takes a double tap to make it function. This may be due to another bad setting, keyboard selection, or a hardware glitch.
In any case you have given me a direction.
Thanks again.

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