Flakey ubuntu second mouse support

Many of us now use laptop instead of desktops, like us using mobiles instead of land-line phones! So I use the latest Kubuntu on my Dell laptop, the problem is it doesn't' correctly configure my touch-pad and USB mouse that I use... it enables both! The workaround I use is to delve into /etc/X11/xorg.conf and comment out InputDevice "Synaptics Touchpad" while I am using the USB mouse... and then when I am on the move I have to go back in and uncomment that line.. ugly but Ubuntu doesn't support detection & configuration like MS-Windows and probably Apple's Mac OS does.

Although, even commenting out the Synaptics doesn't solve it all though, as /dev/input/mice actually is a mixed device node, including the data from all mice! cat /dev/input/mice and see! in my case /dev/input/mouse0 seems to be dead, mouse1 is my USB mouse, and mouse2 is the Synaptics pad. So I also needed to change the /dev/input/mice line to be /dev/input/mouse1 to get it to only respond to the external mouse.

When I'm on the move without an external mouse I'll just have to keep editing xorg.conf for the moment then.. :(

ubuntu should really detect an external mouse and disable the internal touchpad, as it stands I would be left accidentally touching the internal pad and all those touches keep highlighting my text etc while typing! Until it's fixed I'll have to stick to editing files as root then.. Shame the KDE System Settings Mouse section can't control this as a workaround for having to edit the xorg file!