How to Disable Laptop Internal Keyboard in Ubuntu or Centos

Steps to disable laptop internal keyboard in ubuntu or Centos

Sometime our laptop internal keyboard some of keys don’t work and some keys active regularly so we have to disable internal keyboard and want to use external keyboard. Below are the steps to disable laptop internal keyboard in Ubuntu or Centos or linux Distros.

Xinput command is used to float input device of your laptop. So execute following command to list down internal devices  –

linuxtweaks ~]#xinput list
⎡ Virtual core pointer                    	id=2	[master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer              	id=4	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad              	id=13	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Dell Dell USB Wired Entry Keyboard      	id=11	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                   	id=3	[master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard             	id=5	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                            	id=6	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Video Bus                               	id=7	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Sony Vaio Keys                          	id=8	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Sleep Button                            	id=9	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Dell Dell USB Wired Entry Keyboard      	id=10	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard            	id=12	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Sony Visual Communication Camer         	id=14	[slave  keyboard (3)]

Now locate “AT Translated Set 2 keyboard” from the list and note down key value for the same.In my system it’s id is 12.

Also note down slave keyboard value in the same line which is now 3.

To disable the keyboard use following command.

linuxtweaks ~]#xinput float 12

After that when you list down your input devices it will shown as below

xinput list
⎡ Virtual core pointer                    	id=2	[master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer              	id=4	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad              	id=13	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Dell Dell USB Wired Entry Keyboard      	id=11	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                   	id=3	[master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard             	id=5	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                            	id=6	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Video Bus                               	id=7	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Sony Vaio Keys                          	id=8	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Sleep Button                            	id=9	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Dell Dell USB Wired Entry Keyboard      	id=10	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Sony Visual Communication Camer         	id=14	[slave  keyboard (3)]
∼ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard            	id=12	[floating slave]

Sometime we need to disable internal keyboard on boot time and in above steps id value changes on reboot so we can use different step to disable keyboard. There is also another way to disable internal device/keybaord without knowing the id value.

linuxtweaks ~]#xinput disable "AT Translated Set 2 keyboard"

Above step also disable internal keyboard and you can directly use this command at boot time so no need to disable everytime when reboot.

We can also reattach the device using following command.

linuxtweaks ~]#xinput reattach 12 3
linuxtweaks ~]#xinput list
⎡ Virtual core pointer                    	id=2	[master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer              	id=4	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad              	id=13	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Dell Dell USB Wired Entry Keyboard      	id=11	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                   	id=3	[master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard             	id=5	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                            	id=6	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Video Bus                               	id=7	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Sony Vaio Keys                          	id=8	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Sleep Button                            	id=9	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Dell Dell USB Wired Entry Keyboard      	id=10	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard            	id=12	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Sony Visual Communication Camer         	id=14	[slave  keyboard (3)]

Congrats you have disable laptop internal keyboard !!!

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Balvinder Singh

Hello, I am Balvinder Singh - DevOps Engineer with 2.5+ year of working experience with different server environments. Tag Line:-Linux | AWS| WHM |Monitoring | Virtualization | Optimization | Performance | Security | Release & Deployment. I love helping companies / clients to deploy their code / applicateions to well managed, optimized, secure server and can go extra mile to satisfy.

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