Arch Linux

sokuban

Member

Registered: 2006-11-11

Posts: 412

Touchpad sensitivity since latest xorg; speed/distance (Synaptics)

Okay, so after the latest xorg update my touchpad became really really slow, I'd need to swipe across it multiple times to cover the screen, and it was really unusable. So I went to the Archwiki to find out how to change the mouse sensitivity and it told me to use xset or xinput. xset didn't work, but xinput did, although I have no idea where to find documentation on what the settings of the SynapticsTouchpad parameters are. But 'Device Accel Constant Deceleration' seems to make a noticeable difference in sensitivity.

Only thing is, right now it seems that the distance the pointer moves is unaffected by how fast I swipe my fingers. For ex:

In the old version of xorg, if I swiped my finger from one corner to another rapidly, the cursor would travel almost across the whole screen, but if I moved from the same corner to corner slowly, it would only travel about a quarter of the screen. Now whether I swipe my finger rapidly or slowly, it would travel the same distance.

This is quite a problem because if I set the sensitivity too low, then it is too difficult to move the cursor across the screen, but if I set it too high, it's too difficult to move the cursor with precision (it moves very finicky among short distances). With the old system I seemed to have both sides, but I'm not sure what happened that makes the speed/distance static now.

Does anyone know how to change this? ('Device Accel Velocity Scaling' does not seem to have any noticeable effects.)

EDIT: I have been busy with various things this month; but I finally got time to look into this. I've got it fixed; thanks.

Last edited by sokuban (2010-10-22 14:58:34)

patrickthebold

Member

Registered: 2008-12-15

Posts: 55

Re: Touchpad sensitivity since latest xorg; speed/distance (Synaptics)

Look at "man synaptics" and use synclient to change the options.  Possible things to change might be VertScrollDelta, HorizScrollDelta, or AccelFactor, there are like 50 options so you kind of have to play around with them.  You can make the settings permenant by adding them to xorg.conf.

brazzmonkey

Member

From: between keyboard and chair

Registered: 2006-03-16

Posts: 818

Re: Touchpad sensitivity since latest xorg; speed/distance (Synaptics)

I also have this issue with latest xorg.
Yes, Synaptic is highly configurable. Probably too much...

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brazzmonkey

Member

From: between keyboard and chair

Registered: 2006-03-16

Posts: 818

Re: Touchpad sensitivity since latest xorg; speed/distance (Synaptics)

changing AccelFactor from 0.006 to 0.15 fixed it.
Thanks patrickthebold for your advices.

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what goes up must come down

trusktr

Banned

From: .earth

Registered: 2010-02-18

Posts: 907

Website

Re: Touchpad sensitivity since latest xorg; speed/distance (Synaptics)

Is there any GUI for adjusting touchpad settings like these?

EDIT: AHA, wait... i think gsynaptics is the answer.

Last edited by trusktr (2010-11-24 00:07:19)

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