Mouse acceleration and sensitivity settings don't affect pointing stick

[mscheper]

 * Cinnamon 3.8.9
 * Mint 19
 * Intel Corporation HD Graphics P630
 * 64 bit

(full system information below)

Issue Changing the Custom Acceleration and Custom Sensitivity settings don't appear to change the behaviour of my mouse (keyboard pointing stick); it's still too sensitive. (Perhaps the root cause is #4343?)

Steps to reproduce Mouse and Touchpad → Pointer size and speed: Turn on the 'custom' options. Set 'Acceleration' and 'Sensitivity' to the lowest possible; mouse still crazy-sensitive. Set them to their highest settings; mouse seems to have exactly the same behaviour (I've measured how far it travels, given the same pressure).

Note: I have the touchpad turned off. (I hate that thing!)

Expected behaviour The settings to do something. :wink:

Other information This is on a fresh Mint 19 installation. I had the same problem with the same laptop when running off a USB stick.

This forum post seems to discuss the same issue.

System:    Host: redkanga Kernel: 4.15.0-36-generic x86_64 bits: 64 gcc: 7.3.0
           Desktop: Cinnamon 3.8.9 (Gtk 3.22.30-1ubuntu1) dm: lightdm Distro: Linux Mint 19 Tara
Machine:   Device: laptop System: LENOVO product: 20HHCTO1WW v: ThinkPad P51 serial: N/A
           Mobo: LENOVO model: 20HHCTO1WW v: SDK0Q40112 WIN serial: N/A
           UEFI [Legacy]: LENOVO v: N1UET41W (1.15 ) date: 10/20/2017
           Chassis: type: 10 serial: N/A
Battery    BAT0: charge: 92.0 Wh 98.8% condition: 93.1/90.0 Wh (103%) volts: 12.9/11.2
           model: SMP 00NY493 serial: <filter>status: N/A
CPU:       Quad core Intel Xeon E3-1535M v6 (-MT-MCP-) arch: Skylake rev.9 cache: 8192 KB
           flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx) bmips: 24768
           clock speeds: min/max: 800/4200 MHz 1: 3622 MHz 2: 3763 MHz 3: 3689 MHz 4: 3633 MHz
           5: 3660 MHz 6: 3679 MHz 7: 3730 MHz 8: 3737 MHz
Graphics:  Card-1: Intel HD Graphics P630 bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:591d
           Card-2: NVIDIA GM206GLM [Quadro M2200 Mobile] bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 10de:1436
           Display Server: x11 (X.Org 1.19.6 ) drivers: modesetting,nouveau (unloaded: fbdev,vesa)
           Resolution: 3840x2160@60.02hz
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel HD Graphics P630 (Kaby Lake GT2)
           version: 4.5 Mesa 18.0.5 (compat-v: 3.0) Direct Render: Yes
Audio:     Card Intel CM238 HD Audio Controller driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1f.3 chip-ID: 8086:a171
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.15.0-36-generic
Network:   Card-1: Intel Ethernet Connection (5) I219-LM
           driver: e1000e v: 3.2.6-k bus-ID: 00:1f.6 chip-ID: 8086:15e3
           IF: enp0s31f6 state: down mac: <filter>
           Card-2: Intel Wireless 8265 / 8275 driver: iwlwifi bus-ID: 04:00.0 chip-ID: 8086:24fd
           IF: wlp4s0 state: up mac: <filter>
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 2024.4GB (56.5% used)
           ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 model: SAMSUNG_MZVLB1T0HALR size: 1024.2GB
           serial: <filter> firmware: 3L2QEXA7
           ID-2: /dev/nvme1n1 model: SAMSUNG_MZVLB1T0HALR size: 1024.2GB
           serial: <filter> firmware: 3L2QEXA7
           ID-3: /dev/sda model: ST1000LM035 size: 1000.2GB serial: <filter>
Partition: ID-1: / size: 854G used: 370G (46%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/dm-1
           ID-2: /boot size: 704M used: 152M (24%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme1n1p1
           ID-3: /home size: 875G used: 445G (54%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/dm-3
           ID-4: swap-1 size: 68.15GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/dm-2
RAID:      System: supported: N/A
           No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
           Unused Devices: none
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 40.0C mobo: N/A gpu: 39.0
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: 0
Repos:     Active apt sources in file: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/additional-repositories.list
           deb http: //dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main
           Active apt sources in file: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list
           deb [arch=amd64] http: //dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main
           Active apt sources in file: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list
           deb http: //packages.linuxmint.com tara main upstream import backport #id:linuxmint_main
           deb http: //archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic main restricted universe multiverse
           deb http: //archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates main restricted universe multiverse
           deb http: //archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-backports main restricted universe multiverse
           deb http: //security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ bionic-security main restricted universe multiverse
           deb http: //archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ bionic partner
           Active apt sources in file: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/signal-xenial.list
           deb [arch=amd64] https: //updates.signal.org/desktop/apt xenial main
Info:      Processes: 395 Uptime: 3:40 Memory: 13783.2/63891.5MB
           Init: systemd v: 237 runlevel: 5 Gcc sys: 7.3.0 Client: Unknown python3.6 client inxi: 2.3.56

[icarter09]

Cinnamon 3.8.9 Linux Mint 19 64bit

@mscheper I just tried the steps provided to adjust the acceleration on my touchpad (using a laptop and have no mouse hooked up) and the acceleration was immediately picked up and applied. Tomorrow I plan to test this out against a mouse and also on my desktop to see if the issue exists there. I'm curious, does this still occur when you turn the touchpad on?

[germanfr]

I remember this happening to me in my old Cinnamon installation since the move to libinput. However I can't reproduce in my new installation. I guess it was something related to misconfigurations after the upgrade.

[mscheper]

@icarter09: I've disabled the touchpad (hate that thing), and am using the pointing stick built into my laptop. In previous versions of Mint, I'm pretty sure the 'Mouse' controls affected it, but now that I try it, I note that other 'Mouse' options, like 'Left handed (buttons inverted)', don't affect the pointing stick's operation either. So perhaps the bug is that a tab for controlling my pointing stick is missing.

[mscheper]

Sorry for the bum steer. Since in previous versions of Mint, everything to do with the 'Mouse' seemed to affect my pointing stick, I've gotten into the habit of just calling it a 'mouse'. But it's actually what Lenovo calls a 'Trackpoint', which is marketing babble for their pointing stick.

I just did a bit more web searching, and it seems the pointing sticks on newer Lenovos cause problems for other Mint users (for a lot of people, it apparently doesn't work at all :open_mouth:).

So I think this opens a design/UI question: Are 'Mouse' settings supposed to affect pointing sticks, as I'm moderately sure they did in previous Mint versions, or do I need to install an additional package or something, to be able to tune my pointing stick? I'm okay with hacking under the bonnet to get it to behave the way I want, but this doesn't seem to be in the spirit of an Ubuntu derivative, so I suspect the Mint community may want to address this. Let me know if I should try something else first. (At least this experience has made my index finger more nimble. :wink:)

[eugeneseppel]

I also experience this issue