This post is mainly a note to myself so I have a simple but very useful (at least to me) script in a place I can find readily in the future. Go ahead and skip this post. It's supposed to be boring.
In /usr/local/bin/trackball put the file trackman_settings and set it executable (chmod 755)
And in that file is this text:
#!/bin/bash
#
# Leave main (LEFT, RIGHT) buttons alone, but make small right
# button into MIDDLE button for pasting, etc.
# Since the small buttons are 8 and 9 and gpointing-device-settings
# only goes to 8, 9 is used for middle, leaving 8 available for
# such things as scroll mode.
xmodmap -e 'pointer = 1 9 3 4 5 6 7 8 2 10'
This is not ideal. The ideal would be to be able to use button 9 as MIDDLE as well or in place of 8, and also not need gpointing-device-settings to come up at every logon to get scroll enable.
And then there's this to turn off that damnable tap-to-click on laptop trackpads that does nothing but screw up typing every bloody time:
#!/bin/bash
# fix touchpad - turn off tap to click
/usr/bin/synclient MaxTapTime=0
Same goes here. Make the script it, set it executable, and have it run at startup.