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Edit Touchpad Scroll Speed in X11/Xorg (Linux)

·2 mins
Linux X11 Xorg Laptop
Table of Contents

Reason #

Trying Linux on a laptop was very unenjoyable in the beginning. The MAIN reason being touchpad scroll speed. It’s just way too fast and it lead to me using an external mouse. However, with some perseverance I found a solution :)

Use libinput #

Find the Device ID for the touchpad

xinput

Once you found the touchpad, list its properties

xinput list-props <device_id>

You’ll want to find this option: ScrollPixelDistance and its associated sub id

xinput set-prop <device_id> <sub_id> <value>
# e.g. xinput set-prop 12 318 45
  • When listing the properties of the touchpad, you’ll see the default ScrollPixelDistance. This will give you a base to work on.

Make a permanent change #

The commands above will only work for that session. So if you turn off or restart your laptop, the settings you put will be gone. We can fix that though!

Create a file with this piece of code in this directory /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/

# /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/<some_value>-libinput.conf
Section "InputClass"
  Identifier "libinput touchpad catchall"
  MatchIsTouchpad "on"
  MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
  Driver "libinput"
  Option "ScrollPixelDistance" "50"
EndSection

Replace the value of 50 with the value YOU liked

Name the file similar to this (higher value = having higher priority to other configurations your Linux distro has made)

  • 39-libinput.conf
  • You can see other similar configurations in /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d

Reboot and your settings should be saved! :D

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