How can I set mouse sensitivity, not just mouse acceleration?

Question

I can't find a single desktop environment that supports setting both mouse acceleration AND mouse sensitivity. I don't want any mouse acceleration, but I want to increase the speed of my mouse. That means that if I move the mouse the same distance, the pointer will move the same distance every time, no matter how quickly I move the mouse.

KDE will let me set mouse acceleration to 1x, but the mouse moves too slow then, and I can't figure out how to increase the speed. I am willing to accept a CLI solution, but I have only been able to get xinput to change acceleration. I don't recall having much luck with xset, either.

Answer 1

The following has been copied verbatim from an answer that @Luke posted on Ask Ubuntu. I am posting it as a community wiki answer so the information can be on this site as well.

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KDE has not built this into its control center yet, but you can use xinput from the command line. First, run xinput list to find the device number of your mouse:

$ xinput list
⎡ Virtual core pointer                          id=2    [master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer                id=4    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad                id=10   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                         id=3    [master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard               id=5    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard              id=9    [slave  keyboard (3)]

On my laptop, the device id I want is 10 (SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad). On your system, you will have to decide which device is the correct one. Next, run xinput list-props <your device id> to see the current settings for that device:

$ xinput list-props 10
Device 'SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad':
    Device Enabled (144):   1
    Device Accel Profile (266):     1
    Device Accel Constant Deceleration (267):       2.500000
    Device Accel Adaptive Deceleration (268):       1.000000
    Device Accel Velocity Scaling (269):    12.500000
  [ many more settings omitted ]

The property you are interested in is "Device Accel Constant Deceleration (267)". To slow your mouse down, the value must be increased by running xinput set-prop <your device id> <property id> <value>:

$ xinput set-prop 10 267 5.0

In this example, the value is increased from 2.5 to 5.0 and the mouse moves at half-speed.

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Explanation of properties can be found at X.org.

If one are using this in scripts the use of full names can be of help as id etc. can change. E.g:

xinput --set-prop "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad" "Device Accel Constant Deceleration" 1

Answer 2

Just force the pointer to skip pixels, here's how:

First list input devices:

$ xinput list                                                               
⎡ Virtual core pointer                          id=2    [master pointer  (3)]                                 
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer                id=4    [slave  pointer  (2)]                                 
⎜   ↳ PixArt USB Optical Mouse                  id=10   [slave  pointer  (2)]                                 
⎜   ↳ ETPS/2 Elantech Touchpad                  id=15   [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)]                                 
    ↳ Sleep Button                              id=8    [slave  keyboard (3)]                                 
    ↳ USB2.0 UVC 2M WebCam                      id=9    [slave  keyboard (3)]                                 
    ↳ Asus Laptop extra buttons                 id=13   [slave  keyboard (3)]                                 
    ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard              id=14   [slave  keyboard (3)]                                 
    ↳   USB Keyboard                            id=11   [slave  keyboard (3)]                                 
    ↳   USB Keyboard                            id=12   [slave  keyboard (3)]   

In the example we see the mouse id is 10. Next list its properties:

$ xinput list-props 10
Device 'PixArt USB Optical 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
        Device Accel Profile (265):     0
        Device Accel Constant Deceleration (266):       1.000000
        Device Accel Adaptive Deceleration (267):       1.000000
        Device Accel Velocity Scaling (268):    10.000000
        Device Product ID (260):        2362, 9488
        Device Node (261):      "/dev/input/event5"
        Evdev Axis Inversion (269):     0, 0
        Evdev Axes Swap (271):  0
        Axis Labels (272):      "Rel X" (150), "Rel Y" (151), "Rel Vert Wheel" (264)
        Button Labels (273):    "Button Left" (143), "Button Middle" (144), "Button Right" (145), "Button Wheel Up" (146), "Button Wheel Down" (147), "Button Horiz Wheel Left" (148), "Button Horiz Wheel Right" (149)
        Evdev Middle Button Emulation (274):    0
        Evdev Middle Button Timeout (275):      50
        Evdev Third Button Emulation (276):     0
        Evdev Third Button Emulation Timeout (277):     1000
        Evdev Third Button Emulation Button (278):      3
        Evdev Third Button Emulation Threshold (279):   20
        Evdev Wheel Emulation (280):    0
        Evdev Wheel Emulation Axes (281):       0, 0, 4, 5
        Evdev Wheel Emulation Inertia (282):    10
        Evdev Wheel Emulation Timeout (283):    200
        Evdev Wheel Emulation Button (284):     4
        Evdev Drag Lock Buttons (285):  0

We want the «Coordinate Transformation Matrix», remember its №142.

By changing this property we can increase the pointer speed. It is a transformation matrix, used to calculate a pointer movement. From the link:

By default, the CTM for every input device in X is the identity matrix. As an example, lets say you touch a touchscreen at point (400, 197) on the screen:

⎡ 1 0 0 ⎤   ⎡ 400 ⎤   ⎡ 400 ⎤
⎜ 0 1 0 ⎥ · ⎜ 197 ⎥ = ⎜ 197 ⎥
⎣ 0 0 1 ⎦   ⎣  1  ⎦   ⎣  1  ⎦

The X and Y coordinates of the device event are input in the second matrix of the calculation. The result of the calculation is where the X and Y coordinates of the event are mapped to the screen. As shown, the identity matrix maps the device coordinates to the screen coordinates without any changes.

So, we want to increase the values according to x and y, thus increasing the pointer speed. An example from my PC:

$ xinput set-prop 10 142 2.400000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 2.400000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000

It is xinput set-prop <device-id> <property-number> <property-values>. Play a bit with this until you find the appropriate one. Note: do not change the last value of the matrix. That was my error when I tried it to get work — in this case you just won't see any difference.

Acknowledgements: I am grateful to Simon Thum from xorg mailing list, he was the one who gave the hint about the matrix.

UPD: note, some Windows games running with Wine may have odd pointer behavior (e.g. noticed, that the aim in old Counter Strike 1.6 declines down, until it stares the floor, no matter how you move the mouse), in this case just reset x and y of CTM to 1 before running the game.

Answer 3

If you're using Xorg.conf to set up your X Server, you can use that in order to set acceleration or deceleration. Just add something to the effect of:

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier "name"
    Driver "evdev"
    Option "ConstantDeceleration" "multiplier"
EndSection

where multiplier is how many times slower you want the mouse to go. 0.5 would double the speed, or 2 would halve it. Equivalently, though more complex:

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier "name"
    Driver "evdev"
    Option "TransformationMatrix" "a b c d e f g h i"
EndSection

where "a" through "i" are the transformation matrix, as described in other answers.
Source: xorg.conf manpage

Answer 4

I use the following settings in Mint 17.2 + Cinnamon, but I think it works in your environment as well.

xinput list # to get the id of your mouse
xinput list-props 10 # to list the properties of your mouse
xinput set-prop 10 'Device Accel Profile' -1 # turns off mouseaccel
xinput set-prop 10 'Device Accel Constant Deceleration' 1.5 # settings the sens

I suggest you to set the DPI on your mouse at maximum first (I have buttons for that). After that you can decrease the deceleration if you still have too low sens.

If everything is fine you can put this into the proper file in your system, so it will load the settings by booting. To me that file is the ~/.xinputrc.

Some info about these xinput properties: http://www.x.org/wiki/Development/Documentation/PointerAcceleration/

(Note: I love Linux! <3 After I "upgraded" my system from XP in 2009. Since then I had mouseaccel on Windows 7, no matter what accelfix I tried. Trust me, I tried all of them. Now after 6 years, I managed to turn it off on Linux Mint. :-) It was a bit too late, I ended my gaming carrier at least partially because of this. It meant -20% accuracy in my FPS. So I played at 40% instead of 50-60% acc, which is a low-med skill instead of a high. The game is dead now, but still it is a release that I don't have to bear this mouseaccel thing by using the op system.)