I believe that the mouse is responsible for most of the injury. I also believe that the very nature of the X-pointer or windows-pointer is the root of the problem. The hand is required to control position precisely and make small movements while gripping the device: a formula for RSI. Trackballs, pads, and other gizmos help some, but they all cause my hand to hurt eventually. Unfortunately, attempts to use X or windows without a pointer have left me feeling even more disabled. My solution is a touch screen, which I use with a 15" LCD monitor. I find that I use the touch screen for focus, hyperlinks, buttons, and dialog, and only use the keyboard for scrolling and typing. Window position and size control are difficult, because the targets are too small to hit reliably. Some WMs are better than others, and anything with a big target option works great. Acrobat reader is touchscreen friendly, too, with the hand control and the wide scrollbars. The big drawback is the cost. The touchscreen sensor and controller are $300-400 for 15" size and they really only work well on LCD or flat monitors where the touch sensor can be close to the front surface of the monitor. A 15" LCD monitor with integrated touchscreen is about $1500 from Caltron and others. The Metro-X server supports a few common types and emulates one button. I actually use a small ALPS along with the touchscreen for cases where I need the other buttons. I find that using the touchscreen eliminates hand pain, even after hours of constant use.
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I believe that the mouse is responsible for most of the injury. I also believe that the very nature of the X-pointer or windows-pointer is the root of the problem. The hand is required to control position precisely and make small movements while gripping the device: a formula for RSI. Trackballs, pads, and other gizmos help some, but they all cause my hand to hurt eventually. Unfortunately, attempts to use X or windows without a pointer have left me feeling even more disabled. My solution is a touch screen, which I use with a 15" LCD monitor. I find that I use the touch screen for focus, hyperlinks, buttons, and dialog, and only use the keyboard for scrolling and typing. Window position and size control are difficult, because the targets are too small to hit reliably. Some WMs are better than others, and anything with a big target option works great. Acrobat reader is touchscreen friendly, too, with the hand control and the wide scrollbars. The big drawback is the cost. The touchscreen sensor and controller are $300-400 for 15" size and they really only work well on LCD or flat monitors where the touch sensor can be close to the front surface of the monitor. A 15" LCD monitor with integrated touchscreen is about $1500 from Caltron and others. The Metro-X server supports a few common types and emulates one button. I actually use a small ALPS along with the touchscreen for cases where I need the other buttons. I find that using the touchscreen eliminates hand pain, even after hours of constant use.