Originally from "aliencam dot net blog.", just keep a record here :)
I found a couple blogs that said they got middlemouse scrolling working on a thinkpad, but none of their methods worked on my x61Tablet with 64-bit Ubuntu 8.10 installed. This version of ubuntu uses evdev instead of the xorg.conf file that previous versions used, so it makes configuring the middle mouse button a little bit more difficult.
The first thing you should do (just for your own records) is this command:
xinput -list-props "TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint"
that will return the properties of your trackpoint. (change “TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint” to “DualPoint Stick” if you have an X200 or X61s.) I did not do this before changing settings, so I don’t know what the original looks like (if you do, please post it in the comments so I can have a record of it! I posted the final results of that command at the end.)
Now, what you will need to do is create a file, /etc/hal/fdi/policy/mouse-wheel.fdi with the following command:
sudo nano /etc/hal/fdi/policy/mouse-wheel.fdi
then paste in the contents with ctrl-shift-v:
true
2
4 5
6 7
true
200
save and quit by hitting ctrl-x, then “y”.
Now, the above configuration DOES NOT work for me, but it seems that it does for everybody else who has a blog (I can’t help but wonder if anyone actually tried it… so many comments just say it doesn’t work…) what happens is that the xinput list-props command shows the buttons as being mapped correctly, but nothing happens in xev or in real use. I cannot find any errors in any log files to indicate why.
So, what I do to get it working is in the above file, change “YAxisMapping” and “XAxisMapping” to be misspelled by adding an extra “s” as such: “YAxsisMapping” “XAxsisMapping” (you don’t have to do this, you can just delete those two lines and the next step will cause it to work. I just mess up the spelling so I can change it back later easily)
Now, create another file. This will be a shell script that is run at startup to map the horizontal scrolling correctly (If you don’t care about horizontal scrolling and only use vertical, just stop after you messed up or deleted the XAxisMapping and YAxisMapping lines).Use the following command:
nano /home/$USERNAME/.horizscrollscript
Then paste with ctrl-shift-v, or type in the following contents:
#!/bin/bash
#
#
# The following line sets the X-axis mapping to buttons 6 and 7 so that
# horizontal scrolling works.
xinput -set-int-prop "TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint" "Wheel Emulation X Axis" 8 6 7
then save and close with ctrl-X, then “Y”. make the file executible with:
chmod +x /home/$USERNAME/.horizscrollscript
Now open the gnome sessions manager (System > Prefferences > Sessions, or alt-f2 and “gnome-session-properties”) and click “add”
for the “Name” field, name it something so you know what it does (I named it Horizontal Scroll Script).
In the “Command” field, enter the path to the file (/home/$USERNAME/.horizscrollscript)
The comment field is optional. Save and restart, and everything should be working!
Please leave a comment if this does or does not work for you, I’m curious to know if I messed something up and that is why the first art of the tutorial doesn’t work.
To test everything, you should try this command:
xinput -list-props "TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint"
and it should return:
Device 'TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint':
Device Enabled: 1
Middle Button Emulation: 1
Middle Button Timeout: 50
Wheel Emulation Inertia: 10
Wheel Emulation: 1
Wheel Emulation X Axis: 6, 7
Wheel Emulation Y Axis: 4, 5
Wheel Emulation Timeout: 200
Wheel Emulation Button: 2
Drag Lock Buttons: 0
those bolded lines are what we were trying to get! now to test how your computer sees you use those buttons, ust the command:
xev
then you can hit keys on the keyboard and watch what it returns, or put the mouse pointer in the box that pops up and watch that as well. You should be able to see that scrolling down is 5, up is 4, left is 6 and right is 7. (close xev with ctrl-z or by pressing the “x” on the box.)
