Slow shutdown/reboot when mounting CIFS/SMB shares on Ubuntu and derivatives

My laptop with Linux Mint 17.2 suddenly started taking full minutes for every reboot/shutdown. What might have caused it?

I then remembered I had previously placed some new entries in the fstab, since I needed to mount some remote CIFS shares. Could this be the culprit?

Well, it seems it was exactly that: there is a bug in Network Manager which shuts down before unmounting the network shares. This will cause CIFS to hang and wait for 60 seconds or so for every share.

Even though the Ubuntu Wiki says that this bug has been solved since version 12.04, I have applied the suggested solution and it worked.
Now the shutdowns/reboots happen in an instant!

So, is the bug back? I don't know, but what I know is that this is how to fix this problem:

sudo ln -s /etc/init.d/umountnfs.sh /etc/rc0.d/K14umountnfs.sh

sudo ln -s /etc/init.d/umountnfs.sh /etc/rc6.d/K14umountnfs.sh

Disable touchpad while writing

I'm now running Linux Mint 17.2 "Rafaela" on my Amilo SI1520, but even though there is a specific option to disable the touchpad while writing (you can find it in Preferences > Mouse & Touchpad) this solution wouldn't work.

The workaround is easy though, and can be accomplished by using the command syndaemon:

syndaemon -d -i 1

This disable the touchpad while typing on the keyboard, and will enable it again 1 second after the last key has been pressed. The -d option makes the command run as a daemon.

If you only want to disable tapping and scrolling (but not the mouse movements) when you type, just add the -t option:

syndaemon -d -t -i 1

To avoid having to type the command every time you logon, simply put the command above as a new entry in System > Preferences > Startup Applications