The default settings on Ubuntu did not work well with me. Here’s what I’ve did to configure according to my taste.

Create a file 52-synaptics.conf  in /usr/share/X11/xorg.d directory . The configuration files in this directory are processed in alphabetical order. Therefore, prefixing the file with 52 ensures that the default settings in 50-synaptics.conf file are overruled.

Section "InputClass"
    Identifier "touchpad"
    Driver "synaptics"
    MatchIsTouchpad "on"
      # Tap is left click only, 2 finger click -> right button, 3 finger click -> middle button 
      Option "TapButton2"   "0"
      Option "ClickFinger2" "3"
      Option "ClickFinger3" "2"

      # enable horizontal two-finger scrolling (vertical is enabled by default)
      Option "HorizTwoFingerScroll" "1"


      # configure softbutton areas
      # only enable the bottom right corner as right click. Disable middle click completely. Disable trackpoint right click on the top section.
      Option "SoftButtonAreas" "80% 0 82% 0 0 0 0 0"
      Option "SecondarySoftButtonAreas" "0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0"

EndSection

You need to restart the display manager with the following command sudo lightdm restart .

Additionally, the “disable touchpad while typing” option in the mouse settings didn’t work. To fix,

1. Make sure the option “disable touchpad while typing” is unchecked. Otherwise touchpad might not work correctly.
2. Add the following command to the startup applications. syndaemon -i 1 -R -d -K