Well when used my friend’s Rahul Macbook pro i found the multi-touch gestures . Though might look very minor as feature but it’s overall usability is quite nice. so being a ubuntu fresher. I googled up and few links having tweaking to accept few gestures. I was able find out two of the multitouch gestures specifically two finger horizontal and vertical scrolling . more gestures are available in the code bit I am yet to find em. Happy Tweaking 😉 I am using Dell 1525
Create new file
gksudo gedit /etc/hal/fdi/policy/11-x11-synaptics.fdi
Paste the following code into the file and save it.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<deviceinfo version="0.2">
<device>
<match key="info.capabilities" contains="input.touchpad">
<merge key="input.x11_driver" type="string">synaptics</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.SHMConfig" type="string">On</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.EmulateTwoFingerMinZ" type="string">90</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.VertTwoFingerScroll" type="string">1</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.HorizTwoFingerScroll" type="string">1</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.TapButton1" type="string">1</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.TapButton2" type="string">3</merge> <!--two finger tap -> middle clieck(3) -->
<merge key="input.x11_options.TapButton3" type="string">2</merge> <!--three finger tap -> right click(2). almost impossible to click -->
</match>
</device>
</deviceinfo>
Restart hal and enjoy multitouch touchpad.
sudo /etc/init.d/hal restart
Update: Diagnosing your touchpad for multi-finger-sensing-capability
Few people have problem with this not working, while it works for few others. This is posted in ubuntu forums
synclient -m 100
Fifth column in the output f is number of fingers on your touchpad. Put two or more fingers on your touchpad and watch the column. If you see it more than one, this should work for you.
Source: Ubuntu Snippets