[SOLVED] Mouse speed..

[fasteddy]

Hi all..

Have had Kubuntu on my system quite a bit over the past year, but I always end up installing a different distro as I find Kubuntu un-usable with the mouse speeds I am getting. I need to use CAD software and the high speed of the mouse makes this very uncomfortable, nearly impossible to use. I have a microsoft classic intellimouse which has a dpi of up to 3200, but no matter what I try to do in Kubuntu, my mouse races around the screen way too fast. I suspect that the dpi is not set correctly. I have tried every setting in System Settings>Hardware>Input devices>Mouse>Advanced but nothing will slow the mouse down, only seem to be able to speed it up.. Current settings are Acceleration Profile- Flat, Pointer Acceleration - 0.1 x, pointer threshold - 10 pixels.

I have looked around the net for solutions but they seem to vary between 'you cant do that' to 'why do you want to do that?', with a few solutions that look like trying to recode the entire operating system and always have comments from some that say it doesnt work anyway..

So, I have kubuntu (18.04) on my system again, and am already frustrated trying get my mouse to behave properly, again.. Tried to consult a couple of friends about this and all are surprised that something so basic seems to be so difficult in Kubuntu, especially when every other distro I have tried (have tried at least 20 so far) have very easy slider controls and allow the mouse sensitivity to be controlled properly.

Anyone have any answers to this?

[Don B. Cilly]

I don't know... this does look like a "very easy slider control" and it does allow the mouse sensitivity to be controlled properly.



OK, this is neon 5.18 (Testing) which is basically Kubuntu 18.04 though... is it different there?

[fasteddy]

Hi Don..

That certainly looks like a 'very easy slider control'.. Wow, am jealous.. Mine looks like this



Oh.. cant seem to post an image.. How did you put yours image onto your post?

[fasteddy]

Just had a look at the Neon website, bit of confusion as to whether this is a complete distro, an addon to Kubuntu or Ubuntu etc.. It says it is not a distro, but installing it will overwrite my distro.. mmm..

I have Kubuntu 18.04 with a plasma desktop, my mouse settings look nothing like yours but I cant seem to post a screenshot of mine as clicking on the 'add image icon' then demands a url, and dragging the image onto the post results in an icon..

Really not getting anywhere today..

[Don B. Cilly]

Uhmmm. Let me check. I have a K18 somewhere on one of these disks...
You're right. It's totally different, and playing with the values doesn't seem to do anything.



About your questions:
You probably can't upload an image here because a minimum number of posts is needed (which makes sense, actually).
You could put it on a free image storage site and link it... but I've just put it here myself, so...

Neon, you could try it in a virtual machine or on a live medium, see if you like it, and then eventually install it on a separate partition.

[kubicle]

Just had a look at the Neon website, bit of confusion as to whether this is a complete distro, an addon to Kubuntu or Ubuntu etc.. It says it is not a distro, but installing it will overwrite my distro.. mmm..

It's not a "full distro" in the sense that the base system and most other things come straight from the ubuntu repos, Neon only has it's own repos for kde/qt (very similar to what linux mint does).

Although it's not officially supported, it's possible to "upgrade" kubuntu 18.04 to Neon by adding the neon repos to sources and upgrading (so you do not need to do a full reinstall), but a clean install is of course the recommended method of moving to Neon if you are interested.

Probably best to wait for Neon to move to ubuntu 20.04 base, though (saves you the trouble of upgrading Neon from 18.04>20.04 soon after).

I have Kubuntu 18.04 with a plasma desktop, my mouse settings look nothing like yours but I cant seem to post a screenshot of mine as clicking on the 'add image icon' then demands a url, and dragging the image onto the post results in an icon..

IIRC, there is spam protection on the forums preventing posting images until you have gathered a sufficient number of posts. I could be wrong, so maybe a mod can confirm?

[kubicle]

The settings differences in the screenshot are likely that the 18.04 is the settings for the "older" evdev mouse driver, the one with the speed slider is the settings for the "newer" libinput.
(packages: xserver-xorg-input-evdev and xserver-xorg-input-libinput, kubuntu 18.04 seems to be using evdev and neon is using libinput)

[chimak111]

Try this: after clicking on Insert Image, choose From your computer and then click on Browse. In the new file chooser window, navigate to the folder, select the image, click Open, and then Upload.

[fasteddy]

Okay, I get the 'cant post an image yet' thingy.. Thanks for advice chimak111, but that dialogue box does not appear for me, must still be too much of a noob..

Thanks again Don, that is exactly the mouse settings I have and yes, they do not appear to change anything except I can make my mouse go even faster which is ridiculous, move my mouse 1 inch and it shoots across 2 x 27" screens in an eyeblink..

Thanks kubicle, Neon does look interesting, but I will try to get my simple problem sorted with my current setup if possible and agree with your suggestions that it could be one for the future.. Interesting about the evdev vs libinput driver, all other distros I have used over the past years do not have any problem with controlling the mouse, and considering that the mouse is a huge part of the interaction with a desktop, it seem crazy that I cant control it on my Kubuntu. It also stops me from recommending Kubuntu to my friends as it is nearly unusable like this.
Is there a seperate bit of software out there that I could maybe use? Will have a search around on the net, am already eyeing up my copy of Ubuntu as this flaw in Kubuntu is so major as to make it not worth the time and trouble.. :-(

[Don B. Cilly]

Out of kuriosity, I booted Kubuntu 20.04.
The mouse settings are exactly the same as neon's (which should work for you).

You might try that one instead. You can get it here.
I find it quite solid, even if it's pre-release. If you like it, it's LTS for the next few years

[fasteddy]

Thanks Don.. Needed Kubuntu 18.04 for some software which is only supported until that version. Am surprised there are no solutions being offered for this, as I mentioned, the mouse is a huge part of the interaction with a computer and I would have thought someone would have done something about this.. Not a coder myself or I would have had a go.. Have now installed another distro and have a dual boot, will leave Kubuntu on my system in the hope of a solution, but I do have other distros if I cant get around this..

Does anyone know about setting the dpi on a mouse? Seems everyone takes it for granted an OS will be able to automatically sort out a mouse, there is very little out there in the way of fixes. Has no-one else had this problem with Kubutu? I even dug out a couple of spares mouses (mice?) and they all behave the same way. Have a friend who has offered to install Kubuntu tomorrow, will be interesting to see how they get on as they also use CAD and need a sensitive mouse..

[kubicle]

You can try to configure your mouse settings with xinput, if upgrading to 20.04 is not (yet) an option.
Find your mouse id number with "xinput list" and then get the current configuration with "xinput list-props <id#>"
You can post the settings here and we'll have a look if there are values that you can try changing to slow down the mouse.

[fasteddy]

Thanks kubicle, have done as you suggested but cant get the "xinput list-props <id#>" right.. here is what I have;

steve@Z170X-7:~$ xinput list
⎡ Virtual core pointer id=2 [master pointer (3)]
⎜ ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer id=4 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ Microsoft Microsoft® Classic IntelliMouse® id=9 [slave pointer (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard id=3 [master keyboard (2)]
↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard id=5 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Power Button id=6 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Power Button id=7 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Sleep Button id=8 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard id=10 [slave keyboard (3)]
steve@Z170X-7:~$ xinput list-props id=9
unable to find device id=9
steve@Z170X-7:~$ xinput list-props id9
unable to find device id9
steve@Z170X-7:~$ xinput list-props <id9>
bash: syntax error near unexpected token `newline'
steve@Z170X-7:~$ xinput list-props <id#>
bash: syntax error near unexpected token `newline'

Back later to see if you can suggest something..

[kubicle]

Common syntax notation, replace "<id#>" with just the actual number:

xinput list-props 9

[fasteddy]

Hi kubicle.. Got it..

steve@Z170X-7:~$ xinput list-props 9
Device 'Microsoft Microsoft® Classic IntelliMouse®':
Device Enabled (149): 1
Coordinate Transformation Matrix (151): 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000
libinput Natural Scrolling Enabled (286): 0
libinput Natural Scrolling Enabled Default (287): 0
libinput Scroll Methods Available (288): 0, 0, 1
libinput Scroll Method Enabled (289): 0, 0, 0
libinput Scroll Method Enabled Default (290): 0, 0, 0
libinput Button Scrolling Button (291): 2
libinput Button Scrolling Button Default (292): 2
libinput Middle Emulation Enabled (293): 0
libinput Middle Emulation Enabled Default (294): 0
libinput Accel Speed (295): 0.000000
libinput Accel Speed Default (296): 0.000000
libinput Accel Profiles Available (297): 1, 1
libinput Accel Profile Enabled (298): 1, 0
libinput Accel Profile Enabled Default (299): 1, 0
libinput Left Handed Enabled (300): 0
libinput Left Handed Enabled Default (301): 0
libinput Send Events Modes Available (271): 1, 0
libinput Send Events Mode Enabled (272): 0, 0
libinput Send Events Mode Enabled Default (273): 0, 0
Device Node (274): "/dev/input/event4"
Device Product ID (275): 1118, 2083
libinput Drag Lock Buttons (302): <no items>
libinput Horizontal Scroll Enabled (303): 1