I'm on debian testing, and after rebooting (after an uptime of 3 weeks or so, that included a bunch of package updates, I believe including the kernel) the other day, the fine-adjustment - what a golfer would call putting - of the mouse pointer position gets really hard, it feels like the pointer is still moving, although the the trackpoint is already back at its center position. Using the trackpoint is no fun anymore, it takes seconds just to select a bunch of words.I don't think it's just a trackpoint performance configuration setting. It might be some threshold or the deactivation of some clever algorithm (or the activation of a wannabe clever algorithm) to enhance the usability of the trackpoint.This is an IBM/Lenovo external USB keyboard (it is not a ThinkPad laptop, even though I tagged this question 'thinkpad', as there is no 'trackpoint' tag yet and my current reputation doesn't permit tag creation).My xinput version:$ xinput --versionxinput version 1.6.0XI version on server: 2.2And here the props of the device:$ xinput list-props 10Device 'Synaptics Inc. Composite TouchPad / TrackPoint':        Device Enabled (125):   0        Coordinate Transformation Matrix (127): 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000        Device Accel Profile (247):     1        Device Accel Constant Deceleration (248):       2.500000        Device Accel Adaptive Deceleration (249):       1.000000        Device Accel Velocity Scaling (250):    12.500000        Synaptics Edges (251):  1632, 5312, 1572, 4284        Synaptics Finger (252): 25, 30, 256        Synaptics Tap Time (253):       180        Synaptics Tap Move (254):       221        Synaptics Tap Durations (255):  180, 180, 100        Synaptics ClickPad (256):       0        Synaptics Tap FastTap (257):    0        Synaptics Middle Button Timeout (258):  75        Synaptics Two-Finger Pressure (259):    282        Synaptics Two-Finger Width (260):       7        Synaptics Scrolling Distance (261):     100, 100        Synaptics Edge Scrolling (262): 1, 0, 0        Synaptics Two-Finger Scrolling (263):   0, 0        Synaptics Move Speed (264):     1.000000, 1.750000, 0.039809, 40.000000        Synaptics Edge Motion Pressure (265):   30, 160        Synaptics Edge Motion Speed (266):      1, 401        Synaptics Edge Motion Always (267):     0        Synaptics Off (268):    0        Synaptics Locked Drags (269):   0        Synaptics Locked Drags Timeout (270):   5000        Synaptics Tap Action (271):     0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0        Synaptics Click Action (272):   1, 1, 1        Synaptics Circular Scrolling (273):     0        Synaptics Circular Scrolling Distance (274):    0.100000        Synaptics Circular Scrolling Trigger (275):     0        Synaptics Circular Pad (276):   0        Synaptics Palm Detection (277): 0        Synaptics Palm Dimensions (278):        10, 200        Synaptics Coasting Speed (279): 20.000000, 50.000000        Synaptics Pressure Motion (280):        30, 160        Synaptics Pressure Motion Factor (281): 1.000000, 1.000000        Synaptics Grab Event Device (282):      1        Synaptics Gestures (283):       1        Synaptics Capabilities (284):   1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1        Synaptics Pad Resolution (285): 1, 1        Synaptics Area (286):   0, 0, 0, 0        Synaptics Noise Cancellation (287):     25, 25        Device Product ID (242):        1739, 9        Device Node (243):      /dev/input/event6Update I forgot there are 2 devices that might be relevant, this one actually looks more relevant than the synaptics device:$ xinput list-props 11Device 'TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint':    Device Enabled (135):   1    Coordinate Transformation Matrix (137): 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000    Device Accel Profile (260):     0    Device Accel Constant Deceleration (261):       1.000000    Device Accel Adaptive Deceleration (262):       1.000000    Device Accel Velocity Scaling (263):    10.000000    Device Product ID (255):        2, 10    Device Node (256):      /dev/input/event9    Evdev Axis Inversion (302):     0, 0    Evdev Axes Swap (304):  0    Axis Labels (305):      Rel X (145), Rel Y (146)    Button Labels (306):    Button Left (138), Button Middle (139), Button Right (140), Button Wheel Up (141), Button Wheel Down (142)    Evdev Middle Button Emulation (307):    0    Evdev Middle Button Timeout (308):      50    Evdev Third Button Emulation (309):     0    Evdev Third Button Emulation Timeout (310):     1000    Evdev Third Button Emulation Button (311):      3    Evdev Third Button Emulation Threshold (312):   20    Evdev Wheel Emulation (313):    0    Evdev Wheel Emulation Axes (314):       0, 0, 4, 5    Evdev Wheel Emulation Inertia (315):    10    Evdev Wheel Emulation Timeout (316):    200    Evdev Wheel Emulation Button (317):     4    Evdev Drag Lock Buttons (318):  0Any idea what knob to turn?Update I diffed the above properties against those of another machine (a Lenovo laptop where the TrackPoint works fine) also running debian testing, and they are exactly identical. The version of xinput is the same, too. So I guess we can exclude the xinput version as well as the xinput settings for those devices from our considerations. I'll try to get my hand on another IBM USB keyboard and check if it isn't - after all - a hardware issue...[The following is an edit to this question made by Barry Grumbine (thanks, man), that got rejected by https://unix.stackexchange.com/users/2180/shawn-j-goff (no thanks, man). Because I find it very useful and Shawn's rejection hid this bit of information from me (until now) and others, I'll paste it in here:]Additional InformationThere is an open Debian bug report that I believe describes this problem #682413 The problem seems to be related to the synaptics_usb kernel module. According to synaptics_usb.c, line 30:[...] touchstick support has not been tested much yet[...]
TrackPoint hard to control after Debian update
debian;thinkpad;xinput