Mouse acceleration

Related articles
Mouse buttons
Mouse polling rate
Disabling mouse acceleration
Install
the
xorg-xinput
package, providing the commandline tool
xinput
to configure devices .
Using
Xorg
,
libinput
sets itself as the default driver with
/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/40-libinput.conf
. To activate the
flat
profile for our pointer device, we need to set the
flat
profile to
1
and the
adaptive
and
custom
profile options to
0
.
Find out your device id:
# xinput
The first number indicates the default acceleration profile, the second number indicates the flat profile (No Acceleration), and the third number indicates a custom profile. To activate the flat profile:
# xinput set-prop "deviceid" "libinput Accel Profile Enabled" 0 1 0
Confirm the changes:
# xinput list-props "deviceid"
Make it persistent by adding the option to the pointer section:
/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/40-libinput.conf
Section "InputClass"
  Identifier "libinput pointer catchall"
  MatchIsPointer "on"
  MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
  Driver "libinput"
  Option "AccelProfile" "flat"
 EndSection
Disable mouse acceleration in GDM
Disable mouse acceleration in GDM with Wayland:
[gdm]$ dbus-launch gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.mouse accel-profile 'flat'
Configuring mouse acceleration
The factual accuracy of this article or section is disputed.
Reason:
Configuration depends on the input driver, libinput can be used in
Xorg
. Each subsection should explicitly state which driver is assumed. (Discuss in
Talk:Mouse acceleration
)
Setting the mouse acceleration depends on the windowing protocol you are using: either
Xorg
or
Wayland
.
On
Xorg
, there are several ways of setting mouse acceleration
by editing Xorg configuration files
xorg-xset
and
xorg-xinput
which provide
xset
and
xinput
respectively
and configuration interfaces common in
desktop environments
.
If you are using
Wayland
, the events are controlled via
libinput
. It is the compositor's job to expose the settings brought by libinput. There is currently no standard way to change settings across compositors.
[1]
GNOME
manages mouse acceleration by itself. A choice between "adaptive" and "flat" profiles can be chosen by installing
dconf-editor
and editing the value in org/gnome/desktop/peripherals/mouse/acceleration-profile. Alternatively,
gnome-tweaks
can also be used to edit the org/gnome/desktop/peripherals/mouse/acceleration-profile.
Mouse acceleration with libinput
When using the adaptive pointer acceleration profile,
libinput
calculates the mouse acceleration depending on the DPI and the parameter
Acceleration Speed
[2]
. libinput relies on the resolution reported by
evdev
[3]
. Feedback settings set with
xset m
are effectively ignored. When using the flat pointer acceleration profile, the acceleration factor is constant regardless of the velocity of the pointer. This provides 1:1 movement between the device and the pointer on-screen.
Changing the acceleration
Find the id of your device with
xinput list
and set the acceleration speed with the following command. Note that the acceleration speed has to be in the range of [-1,1]. Check
this plot
to see the impact of different acceleration speed values.
$ xinput --set-prop <device id> 'libinput Accel Speed' <acceleration factor>
Confirm your changes with the following:
$ xinput --list-props <device id>
Persistent configuration
libinput does not store configuration options, it is up to the caller to manage these. Under Wayland configuration is restored by the desktop environment. Under X
xf86-input-libinput
reads the xorg configuration files and applies the options
[4]
. To make changes persistent under X create a file like this:
/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/99-libinput-custom-config.conf
Section "InputClass"
  Identifier "<something to identify this snippet>"
  MatchDriver "libinput"
  MatchProduct "<substring of the device name>"
  Option "AccelSpeed" "<e.g. 0.3>"
EndSection
For further options see
libinput(4)
.
Setting mouse acceleration
In Xorg configuration
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for reference.
Reason:
Do not use comments in code blocks, provide more description in the wiki text instead. (Discuss in
Talk:Mouse acceleration
)
See
xorg.conf(5)
for details.
Examples:
/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-mouse-acceleration.conf
Section "InputClass"
	Identifier "My Mouse"
	MatchIsPointer "yes"
# set the following to 1 1 0 respectively to disable acceleration.
	Option "AccelerationNumerator" "2"
	Option "AccelerationDenominator" "1"
	Option "AccelerationThreshold" "4"
EndSection
/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-mouse-deceleration.conf
Section "InputClass"
	Identifier "My Mouse"
	MatchIsPointer "yes"
# some curved deceleration
#	Option "AdaptiveDeceleration" "2"
# linear deceleration (mouse speed reduction)
	Option "ConstantDeceleration" "2"
EndSection
You can also assign settings to specific hardware by using "MatchProduct", "MatchVendor" and other matches inside class sections. Run
lsusb
to find out the product name and vendor to match:
$ lsusb -v | grep -e idProduct -e idVendor
If you are unable to identify your device, try running
xinput list
. Some devices the use Logitech Unifying Receiver share the same USB connection therefore, the mouse do not appear using
lsusb
Using xinput
First, get a list of devices plugged in (ignore any virtual pointers):
$ xinput list
Take note of the ID. You may also use the full name in commands if the ID is prone to changing.
Get a list of available properties and their current values available for modification with
$ xinput list-props 9
where
9
is the ID of the device you wish to use. Or
$ xinput list-props "
mouse name
"
where
mouse name
is the name of your mouse given by
xinput list
.
Example, changing the property of
Constant Deceleration
to 2:
$ xinput list-props 9
Device '
mouse name
':
       Device Enabled (121):   1
       Device Accel Profile (240):     0
       Device Accel Constant Deceleration (241):       1.000000
       Device Accel Adaptive Deceleration (243):       1.000000
       Device Accel Velocity Scaling (244):    10.000000
$ xinput --set-prop "
mouse name
" "Device Accel Constant Deceleration" 2
To make it permanent, edit Xorg configuration (see above) or add commands to
xprofile
. The latter will not affect speed in a
display manager
.
Configuration example
You may need to resort to using more than one method to achieve your desired mouse settings. Example to configure a generic optical mouse:
First, slow down the default movement speed 3 times so that it is more precise.
$ xinput --set-prop 9 'Device Accel Constant Deceleration' 3
Then, enable acceleration and make it 3 times faster after moving past 6 units.
$ xset mouse 3 6
If you are satisfied with the results, store the preceding commands in
~/.xinitrc
.