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Luís de Sousa
Asked: 2018-08-20 23:45:26 +0800 CST

Change mouse speed on Ubuntu 18.04

  • 772

This is one of various DE issues I am struggling with since I upgraded to Ubuntu 18.04. After a couple of days I started feeling some pain in my right wrist. I now realise the mouse speed was reduced in the upgrade and thus I am no longer able to move the pointer from one edge of the screen to another in a single movement. I have tried to tweak mouse speed in the Settings > Mouse & Touchpad dialogue, like I used to do in previous Ubuntu releases:

enter image description here

This however, has no effect. The pointer speed seems to be stuck at the middle, ignoring whatever is displayed in the dialogue.

Is there any other way of changing mouse speed on Ubuntu 18.04?

mouse unity 18.04

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    This worked for me:

    xinput --set-prop 11 294 1

    where:

    11: is my mouse id, you should find and replace with yours

    xinput --list --short

    294: is the "Accel Speed" property id of my mouse. Just change 11 with your id and you can find your desired prop id with

    xinput --list-props 11

    1: the final number is the property value. For me default was 0, 1 accelerated the pointer up.

    You can add the first command to the startup applications to keep the settings after a reboot. Instead of the device and prop id you can quote them in case they change after a reboot, ex:

    xinput --set-prop 'Microsoft Basic Optical Mouse' 'libinput Accel Speed' 1

    Source and more details taken from here: How to change mouse speed/sensitivity?

    • 8

  2. To solove the problem of "I'm using a 4K monitor and I already set my mouse speed to maximum."

    1. Find your mouse device ID

      Press crtl+alt+T to open the terminal.
      Type xinput --list --short.
      Under Virtual core pointer section, you should find your mouse id.
      My mouse is id=13.
      Note: It changes when you plug your mouse into a different port.

    2. Type xinput --list-props <device_id> (eg: xinput --list-props 13) to find the IDs for Coordinate Transformation Matrix (156) and libinput Accel Speed (297).
      Mine are 156 and 297.
      The default matrix is [1 0 0],[0 1 0],[0 0 1] (identity matrix).
      The maximum mouse speed is 1.0.

    3. Lower the mouse speed from graphic UI, while keep the terminal opens.

      Type xinput --list-props <device_id> again. If your libinput Accel Speed (297) lower than before, you are in the right place.

    4. Change the matrix.
      Set mouse speed to maximum by xinput --set-prop 13 297 1 (13 is my mouse device ID, and 297 is my libinput Accel Speed ID).

      Since the mouse speed cannot go beyond 1.0. Let's scale the position by change the x, y coordinates from the matrix.
      Try xinput --set-prop 13 156 2 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 1 (13 is my mouse device ID, and 156 is my Coordinate Transformation Matrix ID).
      If it's too fast, try 1.5 0 0 0 1.5 0 0 0 1. If it's still too slow, try 4 0 0 0 4 0 0 0 1.
      Only change the 1st two non-zero value, keep the last one as 1.

    For full description on input coordinate transformation is here.

    • 5

  3. For me the suggested solutions broke synergy mouse control which I am using to control multiple machines.

    I accidentally found that there is another mouse setting in gnome tweaks which doesnt break synergy and you can set everything though a UI.

    To install: (copied from https://askubuntu.com/a/966634/1100244)

    sudo apt install gnome-tweak-tool
gnome-tweaks  #  now launch it (alternative: press start button and type "tweaks")

    In there go to "Keyboard & Mouse" => Mouse => Acceleration Profile. Change the setting from "Default" to "Flat". Enjoy your increased mouse speed ;)

    Of course you can still use the normal mouse speed settings to fine tune the speed.

    Screenshot of Gnome Tweak Tool Mouse Speed Settings with Acceleration Profile marked

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