[BenjiWiebe]

Are you actually using exec before each xinput command? If so, only your first xinput command actually gets run. exec replaces the currently running process, effectively making it run-this-and-exit.

[madars]

Looks like & saves the day by invoking the command in a subshell and then in that subshell exec replaces the subshell with the xinput command. E.g. you can test it by

    $ cat ./a.sh 
    #!/bin/sh
    exec /bin/echo foo &
    exec /bin/echo bar &

which outputs foo and bar. Seems like a special case, just like exec without a command for file descriptor redirection.

[bananicorn]

That's rather interesting - it does work, I can tell you that much, but maybe there's a more standard way of doing this :)