I've heard that Libinput 1.28 includes support for a three-finger drag feature, but I can't seem to figure out how to activate it on my system. I'm using Debian 13 with the Mate desktop environment and X11. I'm comfortable using the terminal and am looking for clear step-by-step instructions to enable this feature. I've come across suggestions to use a PPA, but I'm not sure how to add one now that Debian has stopped supporting software-properties-common, and I've also read that PPAs might not work well with Debian. It feels frustrating that this feature exists but seems to be off by default with no straightforward way to turn it on. Am I missing something obvious?
2 Answers
Just to clarify, Libinput is indeed supposed to support this three-finger drag feature as of 1.28. If it's not working, sometimes it might not be enabled by default in your mouse or touchpad settings. Check your touchpad settings within your desktop environment; there could be an option there to enable three-finger gestures directly without needing to dive into terminal commands.
First off, three-finger drag is a feature that allows you to click and drag items by using three fingers on the trackpad. It sounds like you want to enable this functionality but it's not working for you. Have you checked your Libinput settings? You might need to create or modify a configuration file to enable this feature. Most of the time, it's just a matter of adjusting the settings in `/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/` or creating a custom configuration file there.
That’s right! If you’re editing or creating a config file, make sure to add something like `Option "Tapping" "on"` and `Option "ClickMethod" "clickfinger"` in your device's section. That might get the dragging to work as expected.
Right! So alongside what you mentioned, you can also use `libinput-debug-events` in the terminal to check if your touchpad is even registering the three fingers. It’ll help you troubleshoot what’s going wrong.