[Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon] Clickpad + Trackpoint cannot emulate middle button scrolling

[Larry Hastings]

I'm testing with a freshly-updated Trusty Tahir daily (2014/March/2) on a Lenovo X1 Carbon (2014 refresh) laptop.

IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad laptops have a "Trackpoint": a red "joystick mouse" in the middle of the keyboard. Historically this is accompanied by three mouse buttons directly below the space bar. One beloved feature: if you hold down the middle mouse button, you can scroll a window up/down/left/right with the Trackpoint. This feature is implemented in X with the "Evdev Wheel Emulation" properties of the xinput driver for the Trackpoint device.

The latest Thinkpad laptops (X240, X1 Carbon 2014 refresh) remove the hard buttons, and have a "clickpad" instead of a trackpad. One must use the "soft" mouse buttons provided by the clickpad. But now we have a problem. The clickpad soft buttons are implemented in the Synaptic driver. And the Synaptic driver doesn't support middle-button-scrolling.

If I run
  % xinput --list-props "TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint"
I see property entries starting with "Evdev Wheel Emulation". Setting them on this device doesn't enable middle-button-scrolling.

And if I run
  % xinput --list-props "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad"
I don't see those property entries at all. I tried setting them manually with "xinput --set-int-prop" but they were ignored.

One of the maintainers of Arch Linux got middle-button-scrolling with a Trackpoint + clickpad to work! But he had to create a new driver. It looks like he started with the evdev driver, and merged in support for the Synaptics and Trackpoint devices. The resulting driver is published here:

https://bitbucket.org/esrevinu/xf86-input-evdev-trackpoint

It would be fantastic if Ubuntu 14.04 also supported this feature. Thanks!
---
.tmp.unity.support.test.0:

ApportVersion: 2.13.3-0ubuntu1
Architecture: amd64
CompizPlugins: No value set for `/apps/compiz-1/general/screen0/options/active_plugins'
CompositorRunning: None
CurrentDesktop: GNOME
DistUpgraded: Fresh install
DistroCodename: trusty
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04
DistroVariant: ubuntu
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
ExtraDebuggingInterest: Yes
GraphicsCard:
 Intel Corporation Haswell-ULT Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:0a16] (rev 0b) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
   Subsystem: Lenovo Device [17aa:2218]
InstallationDate: Installed on 2014-03-13 (0 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Alpha amd64 (20140313)
MachineType: LENOVO 20A7CTO1WW
Package: xorg 1:7.7+1ubuntu8
PackageArchitecture: amd64
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-17-generic.efi.signed root=UUID=265f35f3-eb2b-48a6-bbed-84255b758df9 ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.13.0-17.37-generic 3.13.6
Tags: trusty ubuntu reproducible
Uname: Linux 3.13.0-17-generic x86_64
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
UserGroups: adm cdrom dip lpadmin plugdev sambashare sudo
_MarkForUpload: True
dmi.bios.date: 12/03/2013
dmi.bios.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.bios.version: GRET29WW (1.06 )
dmi.board.asset.tag: Not Available
dmi.board.name: 20A7CTO1WW
dmi.board.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.board.version: SDK0E50512 Std
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: No Asset Information
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.chassis.version: Not Available
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnLENOVO:bvrGRET29WW(1.06):bd12/03/2013:svnLENOVO:pn20A7CTO1WW:pvrThinkPadX1Carbon2nd:rvnLENOVO:rn20A7CTO1WW:rvrSDK0E50512Std:cvnLENOVO:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
dmi.product.name: 20A7CTO1WW
dmi.product.version: ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2nd
dmi.sys.vendor: LENOVO
version.compiz: compiz 1:0.9.11+14.04.20140310-0ubuntu1
version.ia32-libs: ia32-libs N/A
version.libdrm2: libdrm2 2.4.52-1
version.libgl1-mesa-dri: libgl1-mesa-dri 10.1.0~rc3-0ubuntu3
version.libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental: libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental N/A
version.libgl1-mesa-glx: libgl1-mesa-glx 10.1.0~rc3-0ubuntu3
version.xserver-xorg-core: xserver-xorg-core 2:1.15.0-1ubuntu7
version.xserver-xorg-input-evdev: xserver-xorg-input-evdev 1:2.8.2-1ubuntu2
version.xserver-xorg-video-ati: xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:7.3.0-1ubuntu3
version.xserver-xorg-video-intel: xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.99.910-0ubuntu1
version.xserver-xorg-video-nouveau: xserver-xorg-video-nouveau 1:1.0.10-1ubuntu2
xserver.bootTime: Thu Mar 13 11:21:03 2014
xserver.configfile: default
xserver.errors:

xserver.logfile: /var/log/Xorg.0.log
xserver.outputs:
 product id 1049
 vendor LGD
xserver.version: 2:1.15.0-1ubuntu7

[Larry Hastings (larry-hastings)]

Oh, it seems that this driver is not an official part of Arch Linux, it's available in the Arch User Repository, which seems equivalent to an Ubuntu PPA.

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Larry Hastings, could you please test for this with the latest development release of Ubuntu? ISO images are available from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/ .

If it remains an issue, could you please run the following command in the development release from a Terminal (Applications->Accessories->Terminal), as it will automatically gather and attach updated debug information to this report:

apport-collect -p xorg 1287148

Please ensure you have xdiagnose installed, and that you click the Yes button for attaching additional debugging information. As well, please note given that the information from the prior release is already available, doing this on a release prior to the development one would not be helpful.

Thank you for your understanding.

Helpful bug reporting tips:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReportingBugs

[Larry Hastings (larry-hastings)]

I would be thrilled to! I'll do that in the next 24 hours.

Are there any special packages I need to install, or should it "just work"?

[Larry Hastings (larry-hastings)]

apport information

[Larry Hastings (larry-hastings)]

apport information

[Larry Hastings (larry-hastings)]

apport information

[Larry Hastings (larry-hastings)]

apport information

[Larry Hastings (larry-hastings)]

apport information

[Larry Hastings (larry-hastings)]

apport information

[Larry Hastings (larry-hastings)]

apport information

[Larry Hastings (larry-hastings)]

apport information

[Larry Hastings (larry-hastings)]

apport information

[Larry Hastings (larry-hastings)]

apport information

[Larry Hastings (larry-hastings)]

apport information

[Larry Hastings (larry-hastings)]

apport information

[Larry Hastings (larry-hastings)]

apport information

[Larry Hastings (larry-hastings)]

apport information

[Larry Hastings (larry-hastings)]

apport information

[Larry Hastings (larry-hastings)]

apport information

[Larry Hastings (larry-hastings)]

apport information

[Larry Hastings (larry-hastings)]

apport information

[Larry Hastings (larry-hastings)]

apport information

[Larry Hastings (larry-hastings)]

apport information

[Larry Hastings (larry-hastings)]

apport information

[Larry Hastings (larry-hastings)]

apport information

[Larry Hastings (larry-hastings)]

apport information

[Larry Hastings (larry-hastings)]

apport information

[Larry Hastings (larry-hastings)]

apport information

[Larry Hastings (larry-hastings)]

It still doesn't work. And I don't see any changes to the relevant drivers. So I've run apport-collect as you suggested, and the results are above. Please let me know if you need any additional information from me.

[Larry Hastings (larry-hastings)]

I don't know what proper Launchpad bug report hygiene calls for, but this behavior isn't limited to the 2014 edition of the X1 Carbon. This affects all users of Lenovo laptops that have both a Trackpoint and a clickpad--which is nearly all of their current models for sale. Going by the photos on Lenovo's web site, this behavior also affects the X240, all the current T models (the T440 models and the T540), the Yoga and Helix, the E540 and E545, the L440 and L540, and the W540.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Grzegorz Jabłoński (mathel)]

Confirm that W540 is also affected.

[Dominik Gierlach (dominik-gierlach)]

With ubuntu 15.10, full clickpad support is provided by xserver-xorg-input-libinput. No further configuration needed.

Tested with a T440s.