How to change workspaces using touchpad gestures in ubuntu

Complete tutorial using touchegg, easystroke is better to be used with mouse rather than touchpad.

In case you are using unity you may experience some conflicts with build-in gestures. The tutorial I gained information from deals with this issue (please see the link below). I didn't have any build in gestures, so this how-to provides only information how to set up things.

1. 
   

   Download Touchegg:

   
   
   

   sudo apt install touchegg
   
   

   
   


2. 
   

   run it, but kill just after that, it will create a file

   
   
   

   ~/.config/touchegg/touchegg.conf
   
   

   
   


3. 
   

   open it in an editor you desire and add those three lines below into the name="All" section

   
   
   

   <gesture type="DRAG" fingers="3" direction="RIGHT">
   
      <action type="SEND_KEYS">Control+Alt+Left</action>
   
   </gesture>
   
   <gesture type="DRAG" fingers="3" direction="LEFT">
   
      <action type="SEND_KEYS">Control+Alt+Right</action>
   
   </gesture>
   
   

   
   


4. 
   

   Run touchegg to try it out

   
   
   

   touchegg &
   
   

   
   



5. Edit the config file as you wish and then add touchegg to the list of startup applications

The tutorial I mentioned can be found here - there some things out of date (you don't have to compile it). Anyway thx to the creator!

Comfortable Swipe

Try comfortable-swipe. Provides 3-finger and 4-finger gestures for switching workspaces, plus a couple more like the window spread in mac.

This also uses xdotool, but more comfy than the laggy libinput-gestures if you ask me.

The following worked for me on Ubuntu 16.04 and a 2017 Dell XPS 13 (9360):

sudo gpasswd -a $USER input

sudo apt-get install xdotool wmctrl libinput-tools

git clone http://github.com/bulletmark/libinput-gestures

cd libinput-gestures

sudo ./libinput-gestures-setup install

Restart your computer after the above steps. My ~/.config/libinput-gestures.conf is:

gesture swipe down  xdotool key ctrl+alt+Up

gesture swipe up    xdotool key ctrl+alt+Down

gesture swipe right xdotool key ctrl+alt+Left

gesture swipe left  xdotool key ctrl+alt+Right

This was my solution: 4 fingers and natural direction.

 <gesture type="DRAG" fingers="4" direction="RIGHT">

       <action type="SEND_KEYS">Control+Alt+Right</action>

    </gesture>

    <gesture type="DRAG" fingers="4" direction="LEFT">

       <action type="SEND_KEYS">Control+Alt+Left</action>

    </gesture>

I used the synaptics driver with xdotool to do that...

For speed of my macbook touchpad:

sudo nano /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/70-synaptics.conf

# Touchpad Speedup

        Option "AccelFactor" "0.025"

        Option "MinSpeed" "0.80"

        Option "MaxSpeed" "0.95"

        Option "FingerHigh" "55"

        Option "FingerLow" "45"

For 3 fingers gesture change workspace:

sudo nano ~/.config/libinput-gestures.conf

gesture swipe up        3       xdotool key ctrl+alt+Up

gesture swipe down      3       xdotool key ctrl+alt+Down

gesture swipe left      3       xdotool key ctrl+alt+Left

gesture swipe right     3       xdotool key ctrl+alt+Right

Like already mentioned:

sudo gpasswd -a $USER input

sudo apt-get install xdotool wmctrl libinput-tools

git clone http://github.com/bulletmark/libinput-gestures

cd libinput-gestures

sudo ./libinput-gestures-setup install

But you have to go to:

cd ~/libinput-gestures

and edit the created libinput-gestures.conf:

gedit libinput-gestures.conf

And then make safe the following is set correctly:

gesture swipe down  xdotool key ctrl+alt+Up

gesture swipe up    xdotool key ctrl+alt+Down

gesture swipe right xdotool key ctrl+alt+Left

gesture swipe left  xdotool key ctrl+alt+Right

Remember: You have to set the key combinations in the Ubuntu settings to the ones shown above - these should be the default.