I can barely function on a laptop with tap to click enabled. The newer versions of Ubuntu simply have a GUI tab in the mouse preferences. In RHEL, CentOS, and many other distribution which use gnome, there is no GUI interface. Here is how to you disable it:
sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Find the “InputDevice” section (which has the Identifier “Synaptics” line):
add the following line:
Option “MaxTapTime” “0″
Save and exit from the file (ctrl-x, y). The next time you restart X the tapping will be disabled.
