Thinkpads Forum

Is there anyone who has got the trackpoint scrolling working?

I think this is a great feature on my Thinkpad but it isn't working in Ubuntu 8.10. I've read some threads and tried editing the xorg.conf file and was supposed to paste in some code.

I can't find the "device mouse" and can't seem to find any more answers for this. Is there anyone that can point me in the right direction???

thank you.

Here is what I have for the xorg.conf in Mandriva Linux. Maybe it will work for you.

Have a look here: http://psung.blogspot.com/2008/09/scrol ... nt-in.html.

You will have to restart HAL (or the boot the computer) and not just X to get it to work.

Gom Jabbar: There is no where for me to insert the script.



This is what I get when I run the xorg.conf editor. Notice there is no script for the mouse configuration. Where do I insert the script? If I flub- will it be easy to correct?

Untitled_no4: That page confused the hell out of me! I'm new at this script manipulation so how do I add a new file thru Terminal?

Okay. I got it working!



Thanks to some people who left links I was able to add lines (script bashing?) to the xorg.conf document.



All I did was copy and paste the lines from Section to the end section (Input Device) and insert it under the End Section of the "configured device" script.

After editing the document I saved it and restarted by pressing "Ctrl," "Alt," and "Backspace" to reset.

Now there isn't an icon for the trackpoint (like Windows) scrolling and you have to move the cursor to right of the screen to get it to work. BTW I also found (by accident) that if I pressed the blue middle button and the left-button above the touchpad I could rotate the screen. It's cool because it looks like a cube! I don't think Windows could do this without all the Hardware whoring they're famous for

If you got it working through xorg.conf then you probably don't want to do anything... but in Ubuntu 8.10 the mouse is not handled in xorg.conf anymore (and that's why you didn't see anything there) but rather through HAL.

To execute what's written in that page you would need to:
1. Open a terminal window
-> click Alt + F2 and then type Terminal and press Enter.

2. Move to the right folder
-> type: cd/etc/hal/fdi/policy/ and press enter

3. Create the file and edit it. It's a restricted folder which your user can't write into, so you need to run it as root (which is what sudo does. Do I need to warn you about using sudo?):
Ubuntu:
-> sudo gedit mouse-wheel.fdi
Kubuntu:
-> sudo kate mouse-wheel.fdi

You will be asked for your password and then a text editor very similar to notepad in Windows (just more advanced) will open. Copy the text from the link into gedit or kate, save and close the window and choose to save. You will then have to reboot your laptop for the HAL settings to take effect.

If I flub- will it be easy to correct?

Well, you can make it easy to correct...
Before you edit xorg.conf and other important system files make a copy of them. In terminal you copy like that:
cp filename_to_copy new_filename
or: cp xorg.conf xorg.back_up (or even better, put the date/time stamp in the filename)

For file operations under /etc/X11 you will need to work as root by using sudo.

Then if something goes wrong you have a backup file.

But if something does go wrong with xorg.conf you will probably have to use command line so it's good to learn some basic commands (and how to use nano instead of gedit or kate);
--------------

Again, you might want to leave things as they are if they work, but for from 8.10 this is the correct way to get the trackpoint scroll working in Ubuntu.

Hope this helps... even if not right now.

Edit: deleting extra space.

TY

The problem I have when Pressing Alt + F2 is after I type in Terminal it says "Could not open file," "error stating file," "No Such File or Directory."

I also tried running with file and typed in the cd/etc/hal/fdi/policy/ and pressed enter. I got the "no such file or directory."

DO you have a shortcut to the terminal under Applications Menu -> Accessories? Does that work?

@ untitled_no4: Yes I have a shortcut there.

When I bring up terminal what do I do next? I'm not going to actually do anything- this is just for future reference to the HAL....er method? What is HAL?

HAL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_abstraction_layer

Once you're in terminal you can just follow the instructions from my previous post skipping the first step.

Learning some basic terminal commands is always worth your while. For instance, changes to the xorg.conf file might stop X (the graphic interface) from working and you'll be left with the command line only to fix your system.

I've gotten it working through hal and xorg.conf.
if you still have xorg.conf managing your stuff then add to your mouse configuration (called PS/2 in my old xorg.conf) that worked quite well for me. it's by no means a perfect trackpoint scrolling, but it'll scroll vertically

more recently xorg.conf stopped working for me so I started using hal.
in a terminal:
touch /etc/hal/fdi/policy/mouse-wheel.fdi
sudo nano /etc/hal/fdi/policy/mouse-wheel.fdi (or sudo gedit, mousepad, xfw, kate, or whatever your most comfortable text editor is)
type the following into the file: in my file, everything but the first and last line have a space before them, but the code tag can't seem to tell. I don't know if it's necessary.

...and that works quite accpetably for me (vertical and horizontal scrolling!)
note that that might only work if you don't have an xorg.conf file, because It didn't when I was using xorg.conf to manage my hardware.

good luck!