How to get the TrackPoint sensitivity right on my Thinkpad X1 Carbon Gen 6 with Kubuntu 20.04

On my X1 Carbon Gen 6, the TrackPoint sensitivity settings in Kubuntu 20.04 are so off that my index finger is hurting on a daily basis from using it.

I've used the settings from this reddit post (X1C Gen6 w/ Ubuntu 18.04) which I believe work immediately after reboot, but I think after going into suspend, the default settings must be coming back.

Does anyone have any more up-to-date advice for adjusting the TrackPoint settings for (K)ubuntu 20.04?

Update: Running xinput --list-props "TPPS/2 Elan TrackPoint" I get the following:

Device 'TPPS/2 Elan TrackPoint': Device Enabled (172): 1 Coordinate Transformation Matrix (174): 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000 Device Accel Profile (304): 2 Device Accel Constant Deceleration (305): 0.500000 Device Accel Adaptive Deceleration (306): 1.000000 Device Accel Velocity Scaling (307): 10.000000 Device Product ID (296): 2, 10 Device Node (295): "/dev/input/event15" Evdev Axis Inversion (344): 0, 0 Evdev Axes Swap (346): 0 Axis Labels (347): "Rel X" (182), "Rel Y" (183) Button Labels (348): "Button Left" (175), "Button Middle" (176), "Button Right" (177), "Button Wheel Up" (178), "Button Wheel Down" (179), "Button Horiz Wheel Left" (180), "Button Horiz Wheel Right" (181) Evdev Scrolling Distance (349): 0, 0, 0 Evdev Middle Button Emulation (350): 0 Evdev Middle Button Timeout (351): 50 Evdev Middle Button Button (352): 2 Evdev Third Button Emulation (353): 0 Evdev Third Button Emulation Timeout (354): 1000 Evdev Third Button Emulation Button (355): 3 Evdev Third Button Emulation Threshold (356): 20 Evdev Wheel Emulation (357): 1 Evdev Wheel Emulation Axes (358): 6, 7, 4, 5 Evdev Wheel Emulation Inertia (359): 2 Evdev Wheel Emulation Timeout (360): 200 Evdev Wheel Emulation Button (361): 2 Evdev Drag Lock Buttons (362): 0

2 Answers

After "investing" 1 day of seeking for a functional solution, including tweaking libinput settings and installing sysfsutils, going back to synaptics showed up as the only way to keep my beloved trackpoint in action.

It seems to me that libinput is just not sophisticated enough and without properly set-up acceleration profile the trackpoint for me seems useless.

Found partial solution in this blog: fixing the trackpoint on ubuntu

1. Instal synaptics and remove libinput:

   apt install xserver-xorg-input-synaptics-hwe-18.04 xserver-xorg-input-evdev-hwe-18.04
   apt remove xserver-xorg-input-libinput xserver-xorg-input-libinput-hwe-18.04

2. Add config file for X11: Create a 20-thinkpad.conf file with the following contents in the /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d folder:

   Section "InputClass"
   Identifier "Trackpoint Wheel Emulation"
   MatchProduct "TPPS/2 ALPS TrackPoint|TrackPoint"
   MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
   Option "EmulateWheel" "true"
   Option "EmulateWheelButton" "2"
   Option "Emulate3Buttons" "false"
   Option "XAxisMapping" "6 7"
   Option "YAxisMapping" "4 5"
   EndSection

I had a similar issue on my Thinkpad X1 Carbon Gen 7 on Ubuntu 20.04. I fixed it by running:

xinput --set-prop "TPPS/2 Elan TrackPoint" "libinput Accel Speed" 1.0

This sets the acceleration to the maximum value which translates to better sensitivity.

To persist this on startup, I added the command to Startup Applications in Ubuntu.

You might also need to ensure that your libinput Accel Profile is set to "adaptive" and not "flat". You can test this by running:

xinput --list-props "TPPS/2 Elan TrackPoint"

In the output you get, the Accel Profile enabled value should be:

libinput Accel Profile Enabled (315): 1, 0

Additionally, once you've set your acceleration profile, you can go to System Settings and set your mouse speed to maximum as well. The combination of the correct acceleration profile and mouse speed has made the trackpoint really smooth on my machine.