Disable Trackpoint middle-click scrolling in Linux

These are instructions on how to disable middle-click scrolling behavior for a Trackpoint or pointing stick device in Linux. For this you need xinput installed. If it isn’t installed install it with apt install xinput or whatever command is appropriate for your system.

First, determine the id of the trackpoint device:

xinput list

The Trackpoint should be listed like:

⎜ ↳ TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint id=13

Now to view the properties:

xinput list-props 13

Look for the line with Scroll Method Enabled. It will look like:

libinput Scroll Method Enabled (330):   0, 0, 1

Note the ID of this parameter which here is 330. To read the documentation on exactly what this and all the other parameters are see the libinput(4) man page.

man libinput 4

libinput Scroll Method Enabled
              3  boolean  values  (8  bit, 0 or 1), in order "two-finger",
              "edge", "button".  Indicates which  scroll  method  is  cur‐
              rently enabled on this device.

It is a series of three boolean true/false values expressed as 1/0. The first value corresponds to the left trackpoint button, the second to the right button, and the third to the middle button. Notice that the value for the middle button is 1 which means scrolling is enabled. To disable it it needs to be changed to 0:

xinput set-prop 13 330 0 0 0

And that is it. Middle-button scrolling will be disabled.

In conjuction with this I really like to use the excellent browser addon ScrollAnywhere available for Firefox and for Chrome. If you use this addon I recommend enabling the “grab and drag” functionality in the settings and also increasing multiplier value to around 1.5. For Linux it is recommended to also select “Don’t block default button” in the advanced settings.