Gnome 3 has the option of disabling the trackpad while the user is typing. (System Settings -> Mouse and Touchpad -> Touchpad) However, it uses a timeout of two seconds. Two seconds doesn’t sound like much, but it may be enough to feel weird — at least it did for me.

When you check that option, all Gnome is doing is running a utility called “syndaemon”, and it uses a 2 second timeout. We can adjust the timeout by running this ourselves when we login:

1. Make sure Gnome doesn’t also run syndaemon by keeping the aforementioned checkbox unchecked
2. Run gnome-session-properties, after entering alt-F2 or from the commandline.
3. Click Add, and then enter Syndaemon, /usr/bin/syndaemon -i 0.5 -K -R, and any comment you want
4. Click Save.
5. Logout and back in

If you run “ps ax|grep synd” you will see syndaemon has been started with your settings. 0.5 seconds works for me but feel free to experiment.