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I'm running Ubuntu on my Thinkpad T60. Is there a way to get the middle button to act like a scroll like it would when it runs Windows?

I'd like to be able to hold the middle button down and scroll down a webpage using the red button.

6 Answers 6

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http://www.eastwoodzhao.com/thinkpad-middle-button-scroll-ubuntu-linux-10-04-lucid-lynx/

In short, run this: gksu gedit /usr/lib/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-thinkpad.conf and put this in the file:

Section "InputClass"
Identifier "Trackpoint Wheel Emulation"
MatchProduct "TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint|DualPoint Stick|Synaptics Inc. Composite TouchPad / TrackPoint"
MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
Option "EmulateWheel" "true"
Option "EmulateWheelButton" "2"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "false"
Option "XAxisMapping" "6 7"
Option "YAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Save and restart.

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  • 4
    In 10.10 you should use gksu gedit /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-thinkpad.conf instead
    – vava
    Oct 13, 2010 at 1:00
  • Awesome! Sill accurate on Debian Jessie. Aug 29, 2014 at 15:12
  • Worked for me on a T540p running Debian Stretch, but I also had to add Driver "evdev" to the configuration file.
    – Nikopol
    Sep 3, 2016 at 10:27
17

Install package "gpointing-device-settings" Set options as follows:

check "Use middle button emulation"
check "Use wheel emulation"
select button "2"
check "Enable vertical scroll"

Screenshot

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  • I can verify that this works on my ThinkPad X60 running Ubuntu 10.04. +1, and use the rep to post your screenshot. :)
    – ændrük
    Sep 7, 2010 at 21:47
4

ThinkWiki has instructions on how to do this. Specifically, how to use xinput(1) to configure the TrackPoint.

(All in all, ThinkWiki is a great resource. It's pretty much the go-to place for just about anything on running Linux on Thinkpads.)

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Gpointing is a graphical application for the gnome desktop to achieve the same result ;)

With Ubuntu install it in a terminal

sudo apt-get install gpointing-device-settings

or via software center "gpointing-device-settings"

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  • Worked great for a HP Pavilion touchpad
    – Xeoncross
    Jan 11, 2014 at 0:01
  • E: Package 'gpointing-device-settings' has no installation candidate aj07mm@aj07mm-ThinkPad-X220:~$ May 21, 2016 at 2:10
  • Looks like this gpointing-device-settings is not supported anymore. I couldn't this package. Sep 30, 2017 at 14:27
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I use the following in my AwesomeWM autostart file:

# make the mouse work right on my thinkpad in lucid
xinput set-prop 'TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint' "Evdev Wheel Emulation" 1
xinput set-prop 'TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint' "Evdev Wheel Emulation Button" 2
xinput set-prop 'TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint' "Evdev Wheel Emulation Timeout" 200

In the default Gnome install you could write a script that runs on boot or perhaps check out if the .xinitrc or .Xresources is used. (I can't recall which is used any more)

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In Ubuntu 14.04, these settings are in /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/11-evdev-trackpoint.conf. It looks like this:

 # trackpoint users want wheel emulation

Section "InputClass"
    Identifier  "trackpoint catchall"
    MatchIsPointer  "true"
    MatchProduct    "TrackPoint|DualPoint Stick"
    MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
    Option  "Emulate3Buttons"   "true"
    Option  "EmulateWheel"  "true"
    Option  "EmulateWheelButton"    "2"
    Option  "XAxisMapping"  "6 7"
    Option  "YAxisMapping"  "4 5"
EndSection

To get "natural scrolling", that is, scrolling in the direction of the pointer, you can swap the YAxisMapping values to be "5 4" instead. I restarted after I swapped mine and it worked fine.

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