A Quick guide to setting up adisional devices on Linux This guide was written on a desktop running Debian 8.0 it uses systemD the below will probally only work on that OS and its decentants
General ximput
List all input devives
# xinput list [--long]
e.g.
xinput list
Virtual core pointer id=2 [master pointer (3)]
↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer id=4 [slave pointer (2)]
↳ Kensington Kensington Slimblade Trackball id=11 [slave pointer (2)]
↳ SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad id=14 [slave pointer (2)]
↳ TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint id=15 [slave pointer (2)]
Virtual core keyboard id=3 [master keyboard (2)]
↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard id=5 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Power Button id=6 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Video Bus id=7 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Video Bus id=8 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Sleep Button id=9 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Integrated Camera id=10 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Sun USB Keyboard id=12 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard id=13 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ ThinkPad Extra Buttons id=16 [slave keyboard (3)]
Get detales of an input device
# xinput list-props [device id] "[device name]"
e.g.
# xinput list-props "Kensington Kensington Slimblade Trackball" Or # xinput list-props 11 Device 'Kensington Kensington Slimblade Trackball': Device Enabled (138): 1 Coordinate Transformation Matrix (140): 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000 Device Accel Profile (264): 0 Device Accel Constant Deceleration (265): 1.000000 Device Accel Adaptive Deceleration (266): 1.000000 Device Accel Velocity Scaling (267): 10.000000 Device Product ID (258): 1149, 8257 Device Node (259): "/dev/input/event8" Evdev Axis Inversion (268): 0, 0 Evdev Axes Swap (270): 0 Axis Labels (271): "Rel X" (148), "Rel Y" (149), "Rel Vert Wheel" (263) Button Labels (272): "Button Left" (141), "Button Middle" (142), "Button Right" (143), "Button Wheel Up" (144), "Button Wheel Down" (145), "Button Horiz Wheel Left" (146), "Button Horiz Wheel Right" (147), "Button Side" (262), "Button Unknown" (261), "Button Unknown" (261), "Button Unknown" (261), "Button Unknown" (261) Evdev Scrolling Distance (273): 1, 1, 1 Evdev Middle Button Emulation (274): 0 Evdev Middle Button Timeout (275): 50 Evdev Third Button Emulation (276): 0 Evdev Third Button Emulation Timeout (277): 1000 Evdev Third Button Emulation Button (278): 3 Evdev Third Button Emulation Threshold (279): 20 Evdev Wheel Emulation (280): 1 Evdev Wheel Emulation Axes (281): 6, 7, 4, 5 Evdev Wheel Emulation Inertia (282): 10 Evdev Wheel Emulation Timeout (283): 200 Evdev Wheel Emulation Button (284): 8 Evdev Drag Lock Buttons (285): 0
Setting up "Kensington Kensington Slimblade Trackball"
Set up via xinput
xinput set-prop "Kensington Kensington Slimblade Trackball" "Evdev Wheel Emulation" 1 xinput set-prop "Kensington Kensington Slimblade Trackball" "Evdev Wheel Emulation Button" 8 xinput set-prop "Kensington Kensington Slimblade Trackball" "Evdev Wheel Emulation Axes" 6 7 4 5
The first line is telling the xinput system to enable the mouse wheel emulation (similar to the navigation mode)
The second line is to use the upper-right button (Button 8 ) to trigger the navigation mode.
The third line make it work for both vertical and horizontal scroll.
Depricated methord for the same
# xinput set-int-prop "Kensington Kensington Slimblade Trackball" "Evdev Wheel Emulation" 8 1 # xinput set-int-prop "Kensington Kensington Slimblade Trackball" "Evdev Wheel Emulation Button" 8 8 # xinput set-int-prop "Kensington Kensington Slimblade Trackball" "Evdev Wheel Emulation Axes" 8 6, 7, 4, 5
Via xorg.conf.d
A very much work in progress but this seems to be working
Some distributions now support the new Xorg hotplug configuration method via xorg.conf.d directories (in Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx) instead of hal. In contrast to the udev method below, it should be around for some time, so it might be the best way to “statically” configure scrolling.
Create the file /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/23-Kensington_Slimblade_Trackball.conf as root with the below content: Some systems use /usr/lib/X11/xorg.conf.d instead
cat /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/23-Kensington_Slimblade_Trackball.conf Section "InputClass" Identifier "Trackpoint Wheel Emulation" MatchProduct "Kensington Kensington Slimblade Trackball" MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*" Option "EmulateWheel" "true" Option "EmulateWheelButton" "8" Option "XAxisMapping" "6 7" Option "YAxisMapping" "4 5" EndSection
Reload the udev rules
# udevadm control --reload-rules
Additional reading and notes taken from