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debian 11 gnome - chunky mouse pointer animation

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remus
Posts: 85
Joined: 2008-06-03 02:39

debian 11 gnome - chunky mouse pointer animation

#1 Post by remus »

Hi all,

Am using Debian 11 gnome on HP Elitebook 9470m laptop. Installed alongside Windows 10.

Post installation /boot/EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi customisation was required to get Grub working, but took only a minute.

System is fully uptodate.

I've noticed the on screen mouse pointer animation is pretty chunky. This animation problem is not present within Windows 10. I'm assuming it might be a synaptic-touchpad issue...

Code: Select all

$ egrep -i 'synap|alps|etps|elan' /proc/bus/input/devices
N: Name="SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad"
I had a look for synaptic in the Synaptic Package Manager and found

xserver-xorg-input-synaptics 1.9.1-2 was available but not installed.
Installing this package and rebooting did not improve the poor mouse pointer animation.

I've had the same problem in the past with other Linux distros on this laptop, and solved it by trying different versions of offered xserver-xorg-input-synaptics packages until one did the trick. However I have not observed more than one version of the xserver-xorg-input-synaptics package being offered within the Synaptics Package Manager.

Suggestions and comments welcomed and appreciated.

Thank you.

remus
Posts: 85
Joined: 2008-06-03 02:39

Re: debian 11 gnome - chunky mouse pointer animation

#2 Post by remus »

I did a little digging to find out how I got this problem resolved on Zorin OS and Kubuntu

Turns out I had to install a package called xserver-xorg-input-synaptics-hwe-18.04

I don't see this package available in Stable Debian Repo's for Bullseye.

Search for smooth touchpad pointer movement continues.

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Re: debian 11 gnome - chunky mouse pointer animation

#3 Post by FreewheelinFrank »

I think libinput has replaced the synaptics drivers under Wayland; if you are using xorg, you would need xserver-xorg-input-libinput, but it seems to have been installed by default on my system (Bullseye upgraded to Testing).

Different touchpad here, so can't comment on synaptics issues.

Code: Select all

N: Name="ETPS/2 Elantech Touchpad"

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Re: debian 11 gnome - chunky mouse pointer animation

#4 Post by FreewheelinFrank »

There's a video here of somebody fixing a jerky mouse on your laptop with the synaptics settings here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsrqQcrdC2I

You may need to do something similar with libinput or libinput for xorg.

https://wayland.freedesktop.org/libinpu ... ation.html

https://www.mankier.com/4/libinput

remus
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Re: debian 11 gnome - chunky mouse pointer animation

#5 Post by remus »

Thanks for the youtube link.

I tried it and had no luck.

When I run xinput list I get xwayland touchpad device, not details about my actual touchpad

Code: Select all

$ xinput list
WARNING: running xinput against an Xwayland server. See the xinput man page for details.
⎡ Virtual core pointer                    	id=2	[master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer              	id=4	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ xwayland-pointer:17                     	id=6	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ xwayland-relative-pointer:17            	id=7	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                   	id=3	[master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard             	id=5	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ xwayland-keyboard:17                    	id=8	[slave  keyboard (3)]
This website talks about this and states xwayland compositor configuration should be used.
https://who-t.blogspot.com/2017/05/xinp ... 0XWayland.

I will look into xwayland compositor configuration, perhaps with the libinput command...

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Re: debian 11 gnome - chunky mouse pointer animation

#6 Post by FreewheelinFrank »

remus wrote: 2021-11-04 04:59 Thanks for the youtube link.

I tried it and had no luck.
Not surprising: xinput works with the synaptics drivers, and they have been replaced by libinput, which is why I said you may need to do something similar with libinput.

The video was just to show that the mouse issue on your laptop can be fixed by changing a setting in the config file. The other links tell you how to change the config in libinput, either in Wayland or xorg: hopefully there is a similar setting that will fix the issue for you.

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Re: debian 11 gnome - chunky mouse pointer animation

#7 Post by remus »

Bit of googling found this
https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-a ... -issue-fix

Its focused on Ubuntu and hwe kernel package's and synaptics touchpad driver... But it does have details about editing

Code: Select all

/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/40-libinput.conf
As follows
Now find the section that has the wording - Identifier libinput touchpad catchall and type in the following changes between the lines MatchDevicePath /dev/input/event* and Driver libinput:

Code: Select all

Option Tapping True
Option TappingDrag True
Option DisableWhileTyping True
Option AccelProfile adaptive
Option AccelSpeed 0.4
Option SendEventsMode disabled-on-external-mouse
NOTE: the AccelProfile adaptive property...

So I've adjusted the file, saved, rebooted and there's no change to the jittery pointer movement when I use the touchpad.

Out of curiosity I checked the libinput list-devices output

Code: Select all

Device:           SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad
Kernel:           /dev/input/event6
Group:            8
Seat:             seat0, default
Size:             107x56mm
Capabilities:     pointer gesture
Tap-to-click:     disabled
Tap-and-drag:     enabled
Tap drag lock:    disabled
Left-handed:      disabled
Nat.scrolling:    disabled
Middle emulation: n/a
Calibration:      n/a
Scroll methods:   *two-finger edge 
Click methods:    none
Disable-w-typing: enabled
Accel profiles:   flat *adaptive
Rotation:         n/a
Looks like libinput thinks Accel Profile is set to flat, but I set it to adaptive in 40-libinput.conf

The journey continues...

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