Comment 19 for bug 489830

I had similar problems, where gpointing-device-settings did not seem to stick. I figured out that in my case the problem was that I set "disable touchpad when typing" in the default gnome mouse setup tool (Ubuntu 10.04: System->Preferences->Mouse under the touchpad tab). I guess the problem is that after typing, the touchpad is turned "back" on, even when disabled in gpointing-device-settings.
Hope this helps...