Comment 53 for bug 489830

On Fri, 06.01.2012, 07:46 +0000 Tom Gelinas wrote :

> > I can confirm the issue on a ThinkPad W510 with Ubuntu 11.10. Please
> –
> > this is annoying as hell and renders the gpointing-device-settings
> > completely useless.
> >
> Under Ubuntu 11.10, I don't think gpointing-device-settings is
> necessary for simple TrackPoint style middle-click+downward-motion
> scrolling. It works fine on my end by default.

So, you basically write here "not using the faulty software doesn't
cause problems on my end". That, of course, will always be true and is -
sorry to have to say this - an utterly useless statement.

You need GDS if you're NOT satisfied with the xorg defaults. If you
happen to have an application that makes you need to change Wheel
Emulation to Button3 instead of Button2 then you either need extensive
xorg knowledge and a text editor or gpointing-device-settings to make
the change happen. After having changed the setting with
gpointing-device-settings this setting will be reset to the Button2
default on every suspend or reboot.

So the choice is to either fix gpointing-device-settings to be a tool
that actually works up to its promises or remove it from ubuntu
entirely, because, as it is, it wont work fine on ANY end.
Since removing usability from gnome/ubuntu seems to be the way to go
these days, I suspect the latter will happen.

kind regards,
              Fionn