Configure ThinkPad TrackPoint

[mastertimothy]

Hey guys

I've got a ThinkPad W700 and I've been using Karmic on it since its release. I finally got around to really tweaking the TrackPoint's settings.

ThinkWiki (http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to_configure_the_TrackPoint) describes how to configure TrackPoint using a variety of methods. However the article is a little out of date, incomplete, and confusing.

1. Introduction

The TrackPoint is the red nub in the middle of the keyboard and the three buttons right below the keyboard. By default Press-To-Select, the process of pushing down on the TrackPoint to click, is turned off. Also, by default the TrackPoint's middle click performs the Paste function.

In this tutorial I will describe how to adjust these settings activate the middle click scroll and Press-To-Select similar to Windows.

2. Configure TrackPoint Middle Mouse Scroll

I wanted to configure the middle click on the TrackPoint to scroll just like in Windows so I used the following commands to achieve it.

2.1: Find the ID number for the TrackPoint

The first step is to find the xinput id number for the IBM TrackPoint. Run the following command.

xinput listYou should receive all the available devices for xinput. One of the devices should say:

"TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint" id=9 [XExtensionPointer]
Type is MOUSE
Num_buttons is 5
Num_axes is 2
Mode is Relative
Motion_buffer is 256
Axis 0 :
Min_value is -1
Max_value is -1
Resolution is 1
Axis 1 :
Min_value is -1
Max_value is -1
Resolution is 1Or something very similar.

2.2: TrackPoint Middle Mouse Scroll

Next run the following commands to enable the middle mouse scroll.

xinput set-int-prop "TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint" "Evdev Wheel Emulation" 8 1;
xinput set-int-prop "TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint" "Evdev Wheel Emulation Button" 8 2;
xinput set-int-prop "TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint" "Evdev Wheel Emulation Timeout" 16 200;Now you should be able to middle scroll by pressing the middle mouse button for the TrackPoint and moving the TrackPoint up and down.

3. Enable Press-To-Select

Press-To-Select is the process on pushing down on the TrackPoint to click on objects.

In the directory "/sys/devices/platform/i8042/serio1/serio2/" There is a file called "press-to-select". That is the file we will be focusing on.

3.1: Change directory

Open up the terminal and change the directory to "/sys/devices/platform/i8042/serio1/serio2/"

cd /sys/devices/platform/i8042/serio1/serio2/3.2: Change Permissions of "press-to-select"

Change the permissions of the "pres-to-select" file to allow others modify the file.

sudo chmod o=rw ./press_to_select3.3: Turn on/off Press-To-Select

To turn on/off Press-To-Select is just a matter of adding a 1 or 0 to the file.

~Turn Press-To-Select On~
echo -n 1 > /sys/devices/platform/i8042/serio1/serio2/press_to_select;~Turn Press-To-Select Off~
echo -n 0 > /sys/devices/platform/i8042/serio1/serio2/press_to_select;Now you should be able to click by pushing straight down slightly on the TrackPoint.

Just thought I'd share. :)

I'm not sure if this these methods work on every single ThinkPad under every circumstance. So if anyone has a better method of configuring the TrackPoint, let me know.

[jpeddicord]

Approved; thank you for your contribution to Tutorials & Tips!

[immeëmosol]

FYI:
On the Thinkpad R61i(7650-D7G) the same can be done
when serio2/ is not in the pathname .

[tgalati4]

Middle mouse button scrolling works on a thinkpad T43p.

Haven't tried press-to-select.

[sammy0131]

It worked beautifully for my T60 as well (scrolling part). But when I restart the computer, the setting is also reset and I needed to rewrite the command. How can I save the settings?

Thanks,

[sammy0131]

I realized it preserved on IE on Windows but not on Firefox on Ubuntu. Any idea??

[smihaylov]

Thank you for the tutorial, it works perfectly on T61, but "press-to-select" doesn't work on my Thinkpad Edge E420.
There is file:

/sys/devices/platform/i8042/serio1/serio2/press_to_select

but when I change it to "1" nothing happened. Any ideas what is wrong? Is it possible Edge E420 to not support this feature?

I have tested it with no success on both Ubuntu 11.04 and 11.10 beta2 liveCD.

Thank you.