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In the Middle Cyril!

by gustav — posted on Jun 22, 2010 10:10 AM — last modified Oct 18, 2010 10:43 AM

Like playing with the middle-button and trackpoint to scroll? Here's how to get it to work.

I have an old, but still stately Thinkpad Z60m that is still serving me just fine. Yeah, yeah okay ... I suppose I can also be described as old an stately!

Anyway, I love using the trackpoint on the Thinkpad - in fact, I love it so much that I will never buy another laptop or netbook unless it has a trackpoint. One tweak needed to make the trackpoint-experience perfect for me, is to be able to scroll with the trackpoint whilst keeping the middle-button down.

This functionality, however, is not enabled by default in my Ubuntu installs. I have recently had a stutter from my harddrive and rather replaced it. That also gave me the opportunity to install Ubuntu 10.04 LTS - the Lucid Lynx.

Immediately after the install I was confronted with why I love my middle-button scroll functionality - because I did not have it!

Here is how I got it back:

  1. sudo gedit (or other editor)
  2. Enter the following text in your text file:
    Section "InputClass"
        Identifier    "Trackpoint Wheel Emulation"
        MatchProduct    "TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint|DualPoint Stick|Synaptics Inc. Composite TouchPad / TrackPoint|ThinkPad USB Keyboard with TrackPoint|USB Trackpoint pointing device"
        MatchDevicePath    "/dev/input/event*"
        Option        "EmulateWheel"        "true"
        Option        "EmulateWheelButton"    "2"
        Option        "Emulate3Buttons"    "false"
        Option        "XAxisMapping"        "6 7"
        Option        "YAxisMapping"        "4 5"
    EndSection
  3. Save the file with name '20-thinkpad.conf' in /usr/lib/X11/xorg.conf.d/
  4. Restart your beloved Thinkpad and scroll away!

I got this information originally from: http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to_configure_the_TrackPoint#xorg.conf.d

 

Update:

The above will not work in Ubuntu 10.10 (maverick) - I tried ... :)

 

BUT ... they have acknowledge our need/desires by bringing it closer to the surface for us noobs. In maverivk, you simply:

1. Go to the Ubuntu Software Centre

2. Search for 'pointing devices

'

3. Click on 'install' for 'pointing devices'

4. After install has completed go to System->Preferences->Pointing devices

5. Select 'Use Wheel Emulation'

6. Select 'button 2'

7. Select both vertical and horizontal scroll

8. Click 'Ok'

Voila!!