I have already described how to disable the touchpad when an external mouse is connected using the udev device manager, but today I want to share a simple shell script that I am using on Dell XPS 13 to disable/enable the touchpad using a single keyboard shortcut.

Ubuntu - Keyboard shortcuts

Ubuntu – Keyboard shortcuts

Use the following shell script to disable/enable the touchpad, depending on its current state.

#!/bin/sh
# Shell script used to to disable/enable touchpad using single keyboard shortcut
# Source: https://sleeplessbeastie.eu/2016/07/11/how-to-disable-touchpad-using-shortcut/ 

# get device id
device_id="$(xinput list | sed  -ne '/DLL0665:01 06CB:76AD Touchpad/ s/.*id=\([0-9]*\).*/\1/p')"

if [ -n "${device_id}" ]; then
  # verify current state, set action
  check_state=$(xinput list ${device_id} --long | grep "This device is disabled")
  if [ -n "${check_state}" ]; then
    action="enable"
  else
    action="disable"
  fi

  # execute action
  xinput ${action} ${device_id}
fi

Define custom keyboard shortcut to switch touchpad back and forth.