Mouse acceleration not configurable in Xubuntu 18.04

Maybe related to the following bug report for Xubuntu 17.10 from November 2017 ?

"Mouse acceleration/sensitivity adjustment has no effect"
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xfce4-settings/+bug/1729762

Since I don't use Xubuntu 17.10 however, I can't tell.

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

I'm using openbox, Ubuntu 18.04

Changing the mouse settings in gnome-control-center does nothing in a openbox session. I've tried starting up all the gnome-settings-daemon things but it still didn't work.

Changing the mouse settings in unity-control-center does nothing in a unity session.

Changing the mouse settings in gnome-control-center works in a gnome session.

I can't do anything with xinput in both openbox and gnome sessions, the error...

BadAccess (attempt to access private resource denied)

xinput used to work fine in Ubuntu 16.04. I've tried using both name and number methods with xinput, neither works.

Nothing happens with "xset m" as reported in the other bug(1729762). "xset r" for the keyboard works.

It looks like outside of a gnome-session, you can't change the mouse speed anymore.

An update. To set the mouse speed, I used...

xinput set-prop "<Your mouse name>" "libinput Accel Speed" 1

Trying to set "libinput Accel Speed Default" will always return BadAccess

But the maximum speed is 1, it's still slow for scrolling around large screens.

To disable libevent and go back to the old evdev and get the old features back. Move the libinput.conf file somewhere, then relogin...
mv /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/40-libinput.conf /tmp/

How do we make this bug aware to the Xubuntu team? Did I use the wrong tags in the bug report?

Because the bug is a real showstopper and apparently already exists since Xubuntu 17.10… ie since October 2017.
But hardly anybody notices it? How many Xubuntu users are still out there?

If its not fixed, all Xubuntu 18.04 LTS users will have to live with non-configurable mouse speeds for 3+ years. That would be very bad.

And how do we make the Xubuntu team aware of other bugs? Like package "gtk-theme-config" missing since some days, and it not having been installed by default before.

I'm not able to reproduce the mouse acceleration issue. If I set it low, sweeping my mouse barely moves across the screen. Setting it high, sweeping goes edge to edge.

As for gtk-theme-config, this was no longer maintained and no longer possible with the current state of GTK3 themes, and was dropped from the Debian and Ubuntu archive this cycle. We have a mention of it in the 18.04 release notes.

https://wiki.xubuntu.org/releases/18.04/release-notes

Thank you Sean for your explanation and for looking after Xubuntu 18.04 bugs here on Launchpad.

So you can't reproduce the mouse acceleration problem. This makes the bug much harder to track down, if it only effects some people – or maybe if it affects many people but some not. :-(

We have here in this report at least three people who're being affected. Not to mention user "Cruxic" who opened the same bug report for Xubuntu 17.10 already in the end of last year and to which I link to in my #1 post above.

I can reproduce the mouse acceleration bug on two very different x86 machines of mine, with totally different mice, and whenever I encounter the same bug on these different machines, in most cases it's a real bug and no configuration problem.
So how could we help to further pin down this nasty bug?

Furthermore, shall I open new bug reports for a few more bugs, i.e. is the "Xubuntu" tag sufficient for you developers to find our bug reports?
(I would like to report another bug then: Xfce4's icon-bar exporter doesn't work anymore, the save dialogue doesn't save anything.)

Same problem.
Change acceleration in mouse settings have no effects.
My keyboard and mouse appears in double (see image).

$ xinput
⎡ Virtual core pointer id=2 [master pointer (3)]
⎜ ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer id=4 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ ARESON Wireless Mouse id=13 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ ARESON Wireless Mouse id=14 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ RAPOO Rapoo 2.4G Wireless Device id=11 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ RAPOO Rapoo 2.4G Wireless Device id=10 [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)]
    ↳ Video Bus id=7 [slave keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button id=8 [slave keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Sleep Button id=9 [slave keyboard (3)]
    ↳ RAPOO Rapoo 2.4G Wireless Device id=12 [slave keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Dell WMI hotkeys id=15 [slave keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Dell AIO WMI hotkeys id=16 [slave keyboard (3)]
    ↳ RAPOO Rapoo 2.4G Wireless Device id=17 [slave keyboard (3)]
    ↳ ARESON Wireless Mouse id=18 [slave keyboard (3)]

Unable to change value above 1 :

$ xinput set-prop 13 "libinput Accel Speed" 5
X Error of failed request: BadValue (integer parameter out of range for operation)
  Major opcode of failed request: 131 (XInputExtension)
  Minor opcode of failed request: 57 ()
  Value in failed request: 0x11f
  Serial number of failed request: 20
  Current serial number in output stream: 21

This is very troublesome.

If you want i am on call to give more information or diagnoses

And the xinput details of my mouse

~$ xinput --list-props 13
Device 'ARESON Wireless Mouse':
 Device Enabled (140): 1
 Coordinate Transformation Matrix (142): 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000
 libinput Natural Scrolling Enabled (278): 0
 libinput Natural Scrolling Enabled Default (279): 0
 libinput Scroll Methods Available (280): 0, 0, 1
 libinput Scroll Method Enabled (281): 0, 0, 0
 libinput Scroll Method Enabled Default (282): 0, 0, 0
 libinput Button Scrolling Button (283): 2
 libinput Button Scrolling Button Default (284): 2
 libinput Middle Emulation Enabled (285): 0
 libinput Middle Emulation Enabled Default (286): 0
 libinput Accel Speed (287): 1.000000
 libinput Accel Speed Default (288): 0.000000
 libinput Accel Profiles Available (289): 1, 1
 libinput Accel Profile Enabled (290): 1, 0
 libinput Accel Profile Enabled Default (291): 1, 0
 libinput Send Events Modes Available (263): 1, 0
 libinput Send Events Mode Enabled (264): 0, 0
 libinput Send Events Mode Enabled Default (265): 0, 0
 Device Node (266): "/dev/input/event7"
 Device Product ID (267): 9639, 9232
 libinput Drag Lock Buttons (294): <no items>
 libinput Horizontal Scroll Enabled (295): 1

sudo apt remove xserver-xorg-input-libinput && sudo apt install xserver-xorg-input-evdev

fixed it for me

Same problem here.
I'm using different mouses, none of them is affected by the acceleration and sensibility slides.
I can't disable acceleration.

Also, Lagoda's solution (in #10) worked for me.

I have had this same problem since upgrading to 18.04, and it has been infuriating, as the defaults greatly impact my ability to perform my work. I'm going to have to switch distros (planning for Solus) if this does not get fixed. Additionally, Lagoda's solution (in #10) did not work at all for me.

I have done all of the following both after removing libinput via 'sudo apt remove xserver-xorg-input-libinput' and after re-installing it, and there was no difference in any of the behaviors.

I have been able to verify that changing the sliders for acceleration and sensitivity change the values displayed by 'xinput --get-feedbacks 13' (13 being my pointer device, as discovered via 'xinput --list'). However, there is no difference in mouse movement whatsoever, even between all 4 extreme min/max combination settings. However, I have been able to change the acceleration via 'xinput --set-prop 13 "libinput Accel Speed" x', where x can be between -1 and 1, and I am both able to definitely notice the dramatic change in acceleration, and the change in the value reported via 'xinput list-props 13'.

However, without being able to change the sensitivity, I still have issues performing my work.

There was no need to install evdev on my machine, as in Lagoda's solution (in #10), as it was already installed.

Additionally, I was able to confirm that changing the double-click time in the settings applet did have an affect.

I have now tried using xset to change my pointer acceleration and sensitivity, via 'xset m ACCELLERATION THRESHOLD', both with libinput installed and uninstalled, to no avail. I have also verified that my settings are being recorded via 'xset q | grep -A 1 Pointer', and also verified that changing the respective settings in the settings applet do not affect these settings, both also with libinput installed and uninstalled.

FWIW this seems to be the same as issue:-

https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=272956

Also known to affect MATE not just xfce ... Seems like issue in this evdev<>libinput underpinning x.org infrastructure, likely?

I tried the newer Xubuntu 18.10 Cosmic Cuttlefish [[development branch!]] and the settings work there as aspected.

FWIW, I'm experiencing the same problem on a Thinkpad X260 with Xubuntu 18.04. The trackpoint is pretty much unusable without proper speed and acceleration settings.

Support for libinput was added long ago [1]. However, the xfce4-settings package build does not depend on xserver-xorg-input-libinput-dev, and therefore support for libinput is missing. This was changed in version 4.13.x (Xubuntu 18.10).

[1] https://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11469

> Support for libinput was added long ago [1]. However, the xfce4-settings
> package build does not depend on xserver-xorg-input-libinput-dev, and
> therefore support for libinput is missing. This was changed in
> version 4.13.x (Xubuntu 18.10).

So Xubuntu 18.10 shor term release has got a working mouse driver again. This is good to hear.

However we Xubuntu 18.04 LTS users absolutely need the mouse package to be back-ported i.e. fixed also in 18.04 LTS, because it's a long term support release and widely used. And this mouse driver bug is a show-stopper: currently a fresh installation of Xubuntu 18.04.0 or 18.04.1 LTS for many users and machines is not being useable because the mouse driver just doesn't work properly. How could anybody use a Xubuntu installation with a working mouse (driver) ?

Please, Xubuntu developers reading this bug-report here, back-port the mouse driver from Xubuntu 18.10 to Xubuntu 18.04 LTS. Like you did with the back-then always crashing Thunar in 16.04 LTS until the Thunar fixes got back-ported starting with Xubuntu 16.04.2 or so.

Thanks.

> How could anybody use a Xubuntu installation with a working mouse (driver) ?

Typo: „How could anybody use a Xubuntu installation _without_ a working mouse (driver) ?“

I have just upgraded my first machine to 18.04 on a ThinkPad W500. The TrackPoint needs speed adjusting, but much to my dismay, I am faced with this problem. I strongly agree with Ulrich, I do not expect the existence of such a bug, nor can I accept it.

Should read: "do not expect such a bug in a supposedly stable LTS release"

I can also confirm that at least the workaround by Lagoda in #10 seems to work for me so far.

I'm in the same position as others after upgrading from 16.04 to 18.04.1. The GUI settings do nothing. I can change the acceleration using xinput, but I can't change the sensitivity, making my trackball (Logitech Marble Mouse) pretty useless. I suffer from RSI and this is a serious regression for me. I hope the fix is backported soon, otherwise I'll have to find another distro.

In the end I upgraded to Xubuntu 18.10, and I've now got things how I want. However, the GUI still doesn't work properly: it has acceleration, which works, but no sensitivity. In that sense the upgrade was a waste of time.

However I managed to get my trackball working by using xinput. I don't know whether these options would work in 18.04, because I've only just found the one that makes the difference on the following page:

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/358016/increase-mouse-speed-xinput

Here's what I did to make my trackball responsive. (You can run "xinput list" to find the name of your pointing device - mine is a 'Logitech USB Trackball'.)

xinput set-prop 'Logitech USB Trackball' 'libinput Accel Speed' 1.0
xinput set-prop 'Logitech USB Trackball' 'libinput Accel Profile Enabled' 1 0
xinput set-prop 'Logitech USB Trackball' 'Coordinate Transformation Matrix' 6 0 0 0 6 0 0 0 2

The last line is what I was missing before when trying things on 18.04. The 3 non-zero arguments are horizontal speed (higher is faster), vertical speed (higher is faster), and sensitivity (lower is more sensitive - maybe pixel distance before acceleration?). The default values are 1 1 1, but 6 6 2 works better for me. Don't change the zero arguments otherwise crazy things can happen.

It's still an issue on Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS with xserver-xorg-input-libinput version 0.27.1-1.

I'm also having this issue on"Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS" with Xubuntu, going with #10's workaround

FWIW the workaround in #10 also worked for me for disabling scroll-wheel-emulation under 18.04, which didn't seem to respond to changes in the appropriate xinput setting.

New Logitech keyboard and mouse onto existing system: Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS.

Problem - No control over a very sensitive mouse & no functioning keypad.

Tried #10 - no change
Tried using xinput - no change
Tried xset - managed to slow the mouse but still far too sensitive.

Solution:
Go to Settings > Accessibility > Assistive Technologies
Uncheck "Enable assistive technologies"

Go to Settings > Accessibility > Mouse
Uncheck "Use mouse emulation"

I now have a functioning keypad and can control the mouse from Settings > Mouse and Touchpad.

I tried it with Debian 10.2 stable Xfce and it worked.

sudo apt install xserver-xorg-input-evdev
sudo vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-use-evdev.conf

# Use evdev. You do not need to uninstall libinput.

Section "InputClass"
  Identifier "My Mouse"
  Driver "evdev"
  MatchIsPointer "yes"
  Option "Emulate3Buttons" "True"
  Option "Emulate3Timeout" "50"
  Option "GrabDevice" "False"
EndSection