Good morning Astro,

In what operating system are you trying to do it? In principle it depends on each system, in some it is already activated and in others you have to do it yourself from system settings, or from gnome-tweaks.
Best regards,

Fedora 40.  gnome destop.  clicking on right side of the touchpad produces same result as clicking on the left.  All is well if using a USB mouse - not well if using only the touchpad.

As I told you in my previous message, you can change it in System Settings or with gnome-tweaks.
Best regards,

There's nothing in gnome-tweaks related to the right mouse button.  In the settings, I seem to have the choice of having the middle button work (two fingers) or the right button work.  I need both to work.  So I guess I'm stuck using a USB mouse - very surprised that Slimbook doesn't provide for 3 working mouse buttons on the touchpad.

Good afternoon Astro,

Sorry, maybe I didn't explain myself well.
open Gnome Tweaks-> go to keyboard & mouse -> find section "mouse click emulation" and choose "Area"
I hope that now you can activate it correctly.

Best regards,

Thanks for trying to help me, but the above doesn't work.  The version of gnome-tweaks 46.1 available through yum for Fedora doesn't have a "keyboard & mouse" section.  It has a keyboad section, and a "mouse and touchpad" section.  Neither one has a section "mouse click emulation".  So I remain stuck, there is no functional right mouse click from the touchpad for my slimbook (Fedora 40) unless I use an external USB mouse.  Is there another application I could install that would let me configure the system for this ?

Hello, Astro Turkey

The touchpad on your Executive 16 has only one physical button. Depending on the area you click, it emulates either a right or left click. If it were a hardware issue, the left click wouldn't work either.

To be sure, have you been able to reproduce the issue in a Live USB environment? To rule out your current distribution as the cause, let's use Slimbook OS 24. You can follow this tutorial: https://slimbook.com/en/blog/guides-2/post/how-to-install-slimbook-os-24-424

Best regards.

What is Slimbook OS 24, and why would I want to overwrite my whole Fedora 40 OS for this issue ?  There is something simple that all of you are assuming about using the touchpad and which I don't know.  A solution is looking pretty hopeless, so I'll just resign myself to always having to use a USB mouse.  Again, I'm really surprised that slimbook delivers a product that can't emulate the functions of a three-button mouse. 

Hola Astro,

It can be used without deleting anything from the hard drive through the pendrive (Live USB) simply to verify that it is not a hardware failure.

Gracias!

Hello Astro Turkey,

Sorry for not explaining myself clearly; I should have been more specific.
Slimbook OS 24 is our "distro", based 99% on Ubuntu 24 and GNOME.

The tutorial I sent you was meant to help you test without installing Slimbook OS. What I wanted you to do was try to reproduce the issue using the Slimbook OS Live USB. However, you can also use a Fedora 40 Live USB without any problem. I probably should have shared this link instead: https://slimbook.com/en/blog/guides-2/post/linux-live-usb-what-is-it-and-what-is-it-used-for-423

In any case, I had to download Fedora to check, and I found that the function you're looking for is disabled by default—not because of Slimbook, but by Fedora itself. It's a completely software-based feature unrelated to Slimbook, your touchpad works just fine.

To change this setting, go to:
Settings → Mouse & Touchpad → Touchpad → Clicking → Enable "Corner Push."

I've also recorded a video showing the difference, I don't had Executive on hand but the touchpad system works the same: https://cloud.slimbook.net/s/WXj44mbRyP2TRmX

Best regards.

Thanks for looking in to this further.   But unfortunately the gnome desktop settings menu, Mouse & Touchpad -> touchpad, does not include a sub-menu for "clicking" or "Corner Push".  So I'm still stuck - no right mouse button access from the touchpad, and I still no choice other than to keep using the USB mouse. 

Can you test if the option appears in Slimbook OS Live USB or Fedora 40 Live USB ??

If it doesn't work, I think you should open a ticket to technical support to have the laptop checked.

https://slimbook.com/support

Saludos!

Some more googling now, inspired by the suggestions here, finds the answer.  To make the left mouse button work, use one finger.  To make the middle work, use two fingers.  To make the right button work, use three fingers (!!!).  Same behavior on both sides of the touchpad, which seems wrong; why no functionality difference between the two sides?  Intuitive behavior would have been one finger on the left side for the left button, one finger on the right side for right button, and two fingers eithers side for middle button.  Oh well.