Ubuntu touchpad issue - mouse pointer moving around

Question

I looked at Ubuntu touchpad issues - mouse pointer jumps around, but my issue is a little different.

The mouse pointer doesn't jump to a specific spot. Instead, when I am trying to use the mousepad it reacts "too much". For example, if I hold my finger just above the mousepad itself, without touching it (at least I don't have any tactile feedback), the mouse pointer still moves around.

As long as my Touchpad Speed is high it gets very annoying, for example when I take off my finger from the mousepad, the mouse pointer would move / jump a little.

xinput list gives me the following:

⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer                id=4    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ AlpsPS/2 ALPS DualPoint TouchPad          id=11   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ AlpsPS/2 ALPS DualPoint Stick             id=12   [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)]
    ↳ Power Button                              id=8    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ TOSHIBA Web Camera - HD: TOSHIB           id=9    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard              id=10   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Toshiba input device                      id=13   [slave  keyboard (3)]

The issue is tolerable as long as I have my Touchpad Speed on the minimum setting. Still, I want to fully fix it.

If I cannot fix this, how should I be confident, that I won't have a similar problem on a new laptop?

score 0 · Answer 1 · edited Jul 03 '20 at 16:19

I have already posted this answer elsewhere, but I think it may also apply to this situation.

List all properties in your mouse/touchpad using xinput --list-props 11 (my touchpad ID is 11, yours will be different) and see the id of the property Device Accel Constant Deceleration.

Now type the command xinput --set-prop 11 268 0.3 (my touchpad deceleration property ID is 268, yours will be different) to decrease your mouse/touchpad deceleration.

Since it's pretty tedious to type these two commands every time you log in, put these two commands in the end of the /home/{your user name}/.bashrc file so that these get executed automatically whenever you log in.

This solution has a minor error though. With time, you'll notice that your mouse/touchpad ID will often switch between a couple of values. You may also have seen that. Workaround for this is to put the commands with all these values. For example, yesterday my Touchpad ID was 11, but today after I ran xinput --list, I saw that my touchpad ID has changed to 13. So Instead of only a single command xinput --set prop 11 268 0.3, I'll now put two commands:

xinput --set-prop 11 268 0.3
xinput --set-prop 13 268 0.3

at the end of the ~/.bashrc file.

Now whenever you log in, you'll see something strange written over the terminal like property '268' doesn't exist, you need to specify its type and format. That's because out of those two commands you put inside the ~/.bashrc file, one doesn't have the property 268, and hence this stderr (standard error) message. If you're cool with this silly error, you may ignore it, otherwise put a clear command below those two commands in the ~/.bashrc file. Now after executing those two commands, the terminal will also be cleared every time.

Ubuntu touchpad issue - mouse pointer moving around

1 Answers1