Fixing the mouse sensitivity on Gnome 2

This related to my Fedora 12 machine with a Logitech M705 mouse. It had a generally bad feeling, I would say.

This is actually written on this post already, with some more details on this one, but I prefer having my own routine and final values written down.

So first get a list of input devices:

$ xinput list
⎡ Virtual core pointer                        id=2    [master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer                  id=4    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Microsoft Microsoft 5-Button Mouse with IntelliEye(TM)    id=6    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ HID 04f3:0103                               id=7    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Logitech USB Receiver                       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=12    [slave  keyboard (3)]
 ↳ Power Button                                id=13    [slave  keyboard (3)]
 ↳ USB  AUDIO                                  id=14    [slave  keyboard (3)]
 ↳ HID 04f3:0103                               id=8    [slave  keyboard (3)]
 ↳ Logitech USB Receiver                       id=10    [slave  keyboard (3)]

Then get the properties of the USB mouse. Since the string “Logitech USB Receiver” refers to a keyboard input as well as a mouse input, this has to be disambiguated with a pointer: prefix to the identifier. Or just use the ID (not safe on a script, though):

So

$ xinput list-props 9

and

$ xinput list-props pointer:"Logitech USB Receiver"

give the same result, given the list of input devices above.

The output:

$ xinput list-props pointer:"Logitech USB Receiver"
Device 'Logitech USB Receiver':
 Device Enabled (131):    1
 Device Accel Profile (264):    0
 Device Accel Constant Deceleration (265):    1.000000
 Device Accel Adaptive Deceleration (267):    1.000000
 Device Accel Velocity Scaling (268):    10.000000
 Evdev Reopen Attempts (269):    10
 Evdev Axis Inversion (270):    0, 0
 Evdev Axes Swap (272):    0
 Axis Labels (273):    "Rel X" (139), "Rel Y" (140)
 Button Labels (274):    "Button Left" (132), "Button Middle" (133), "Button Right" (134), "Button Wheel Up" (135), "Button Wheel Down" (136), "Button Horiz Wheel Left" (137), "Button Horiz Wheel Right" (138), "Button Side" (283), "Button Extra" (284), "Button Forward" (1205), "Button Back" (1206), "Button Task" (1207), "Button Unknown" (249), "Button Unknown" (249), "Button Unknown" (249), "Button Unknown" (249), "Button Unknown" (249), "Button Unknown" (249), "Button Unknown" (249), "Button Unknown" (249), "Button Unknown" (249), "Button Unknown" (249), "Button Unknown" (249), "Button Unknown" (249)
 Evdev Middle Button Emulation (275):    2
 Evdev Middle Button Timeout (276):    50
 Evdev Wheel Emulation (277):    0
 Evdev Wheel Emulation Axes (278):    0, 0, 4, 5
 Evdev Wheel Emulation Inertia (279):    10
 Evdev Wheel Emulation Timeout (280):    200
 Evdev Wheel Emulation Button (281):    4
 Evdev Drag Lock Buttons (282):    0

It turns out, that the required change on my machine was

$ xinput set-prop pointer:"Logitech USB Receiver" "Device Accel Adaptive Deceleration" 3

This is not what I expected to do — it slows down the pointer’s movement when the mouse moves slowly. Surprisingly enough, this makes the pointing more intuitive, because hitting that exact spot requires more physical motion, and mouse doesn’t get stuck on millimeters.

As the said post mentions, these settings won’t survive a session restart. But that’s a rare event on my computer. Anyhow, the method suggsted for making it persistent is to add a small script as a starter application. To do this, prepare a small script doing the required setup, and add it as a starter script with

$ gnome-session-properties &

Or, maybe the correct way is to add/edit ~/.xinitrc or ~/.xprofile? Will figure that out when I logout next time (happens once in a few months…).