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Comment by Goronmon | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, the downside to getting used to the trackpoint is that I don't know if I can ever switch to a laptop without one. Trackpads feel so clunky now.

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Do you have any tips for getting used to it? I've been using my first Thinkpad (a 5th gen X1 Carbon) and I've tried on and off to get used to it but it doesn't feel like it'll ever be better than using the trackpad.

Same here. I found learning vim to be easier than getting used to the nib. Would love for the nib to be effective for me. I think the nib requires to much force to push around.

> I think the nib requires to much force to push around.

Adjust the sensitivity upwards and it requires virtually no force at all.

I'm not sure what sensitivity I have it set at but most of the time I'm only moving the tip of my finger maybe half a millimeter at the most. you shouldn't have to press it that hard but it does take a while for most poeple to get the hang of it.

You shouldn't be applying force. The idea is to move it around like a joystick. Almost all force should be lateral.

Jack up the sensitivity to maximum and it works pretty well. I don't need to carry a mouse with me when I'm traveling because the nub is so much better.

To add to that, on Xfce at least it’s not enough to adapt the graphical mouse settings but one also needs to manually set (e.g.) /sys/bus/serio/devices/serio1/serio2/sensitivity to a larger value (I use 220) for a suitably fast mouse.

Disable your touchpad and never take your hands off home-row. The real "ah-ha" for me was when I became proficient at using the nub while my hands were on home-row.

IMO the nub isn't more accurate or anything like that, 95% of the value is simply the position next to home-row.

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