Re: [tlug] linux@example.com How many widely can we do that?

[Curt Sampson <cjs@example.com>]

On 2009-10-25 15:33 +0100 (Sun), Christian Horn wrote:

> The Dell i have to use has some kind of trackball, but barely comparable
> to the TrackPoint/Nibble found on Thinkpads.

Then you've got the wrong Dell. The good ones (such as the M4400, hint
hint!) have a TrackPoint just as good. (Though I'm not so keen on the
keyboard feel.)

> Also pressing the middle-button right below the keyboard of the x200
> and using the Trackpoint then to scroll websites whithout having it 
> placed on the right side scrollbar is nice.

That's not a hardware thing, it's a driver setup thing. Under Linux, for
the ThinkPads, create the following /etc/hal/fdi/policy/thinkpad.fdi:

  <match key="info.product" string="TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint">
    <merge key="input.x11_options.EmulateWheel" type="string">true</merge>
    <merge key="input.x11_options.EmulateWheelButton" type="string">2</merge>
    <merge key="input.x11_options.YAxisMapping" type="string">4 5</merge>
    <merge key="input.x11_options.XAxisMapping" type="string">6 7</merge>
    <merge key="input.x11_options.Emulate3Buttons" type="string">true</merge>
    <merge key="input.x11_options.EmulateWheelTimeout" type="string">200</merge>
  </match>

On a Dell, just change "TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint" to "DualPoint Stick". You
can confirm the settings with 'xinput list-props "DualPoint Stick"' or
whatever, or xinput will also let you list all of the devices to figure
out what name goes in there if it's not one of the above two.

Rebooting will definitely make this work, often even just restarting X11
(say, by logging out and in again), but this also works for me, at least
on my machines:

  sudo rmmod psmouse; sleep 1; sudo modprobe psmouse

> > In my opinion the Latitude-series and the X- and T-series from the  
> > Thinkpad-brand are equally good. But support-wise Dell seems to be a  
> > ahead of anyone else in the business. [..]
> 
> Cant comment on support, my last thinkpad t41 had in last 5 years only
> a broken powersupply cable, replaced by my corporations department in
> some days. No need for support on the x200 yet.

The Dell support is definitely better. But the models listed, Latitudes,
T4x and X-series, are definitely the ones that work very well. (I
still have a T42 that I love, except it's now a server because the
screen electronics have gone gimpy enough that I can't trust it when
travelling. It was one of the SXGA ones; *sigh*. The X61 I'm using now
turns out to be quite the little beast, once one puts in an SSD drive
and gives it 4GB of RAM.)

cjs
-- 
Curt Sampson       <cjs@example.com>        +81 90 7737 2974
           Functional programming in all senses of the word:
                   http://www.starling-software.com