Fixing Touchpad Click Issues on Kali Linux After Installation

After installing Kali Linux from a bootable USB on my Windows laptop, I ran into an annoying touchpad issue.

The Problem

The touchpad could move the cursor normally, but:

• Left-click and right-click did not work
• External USB mouse clicks worked perfectly
• Tap-to-click appeared enabled in GNOME settings

At first, it looked like a driver problem — but the touchpad was actually detected correctly.

How I Diagnosed It

First, I checked whether Kali detected the touchpad:

xinput list

Output showed:

SYNA7DAB:00 06CB:CD40 Touchpad

Then I inspected the touchpad properties:

xinput list-props 11

The important line was:

libinput Tapping Enabled (345): 0

This revealed that tap-to-click was disabled at the libinput level, even though GNOME settings suggested otherwise.

The Fix

Enable tapping manually:

xinput set-prop 11 "libinput Tapping Enabled" 1

Immediately after running the command, touchpad clicking started working again.

Verify the Change

xinput list-props 11 | grep Tapping

You should see:

libinput Tapping Enabled: 1

Notes

• The touchpad hardware was working correctly
• Kali detected the Synaptics touchpad without issues
• The problem was caused by libinput having tap-to-click disabled
• This setting may reset after reboot — you may need to make it persistent through startup scripts or desktop settings

Quick Fix Summary

xinput list
xinput list-props 11
xinput set-prop 11 "libinput Tapping Enabled" 1

If your touchpad moves the cursor but cannot click, check the libinput tapping setting before troubleshooting drivers or reinstalling Kali.