How do I restore my mouse sensitivity/acceleration settings to their defaults

I changed the mouse sensitivity/acceleration settings in System Settings\Mouse and Touch Pad. How do I restore these settings back to their default values?

Solution 1:

In Ubuntu 12.10 per-user mouse settings (and others too) are managed by settings daemon, and their configuration is stored in dconf database. To restore the default settings you want to set the values new users have on those fields = -1 (or resetting them).

Steps to set default per-user settings, using dconf-editor (low-level graphical tool):

1. Launch dconf-editor. If not installed, install using sudo apt-get install dconf-editor.
2. Browse/choose directory (on the left side) to /org/gnome/settings-daemon/peripherals/mouse.
3. Change values of motion-acceleration and motion-trheshold to -1.

Steps to set default per-user settings, using dconf (low-level terminal/console tool):

1. Check if it's there (run dconf help). If not, install using sudo apt-get install dconf.
2. Run in terminal dconf reset /org/gnome/settings-daemon/peripherals/mouse/motion-acceleration
3. Run in terminal dconf reset /org/gnome/settings-daemon/peripherals/mouse/motion-threshold

Steps to set default per-user settings, using gsettings (high-level terminal/console tool):

1. Check if it's there (run gsettings help). If not, install using sudo apt-get install libglib2.0-bin.
2. Run in terminal gsettings reset org.gnome.settings-daemon.peripherals.mouse motion-acceleration
3. Run in terminal gsettings reset org.gnome.settings-daemon.peripherals.mouse motion-threshold

Solution 2:

What I've found is that deleting the gconf mouse folder resets everything to defaults. The slider bars don't change, must be cached somewhere in gnome.

1. Using the terminal:

   Open a terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T), perform the following command:

   rm -fr ~/.gconf/desktop/gnome/peripherals/mouse

2. From Nautilus:

   Press Ctrl+L

   Paste or type ~/.gconf/desktop/gnome/peripherals

   Open context menu (right click of mouse)

   Select the option Move to Trash