How to reduce Gaming Mouse Sensitivity in Linux - Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Elementary OS, Arch Linux or others

I've been using a Razer DeathAdder for a long time now. I just recently installed Elementary OS on my new Laptop and I got my DeathAdder working fine. However, the sensitivity is so much, that you have to acquaint and adapt to use it to perfection.

After some searching on Google, I found that there are a lot of very simple solutions to fix this problem. The following simple commands can be used to reduce parameters of ANY MOUSE!

If you are running Ubuntu 10.04 - 14.04 OR Fedora 12-20

Step 1: Open a Terminal
Step 2: Run this command to find how Linux recognizes our mouse

xinput --list --short

It will output something like this,
Now we know what name Linux uses to refer to our mouse. In my case it is a "Razer Razer DeathAdder."

Step 3: Set the constant deceleration for the Mouse. Run the command to do so,

xinput --set-prop "Razer Razer DeathAdder" "Device Accel Constant Deceleration" 5

This command reduced my mouse sensitivity considerably. You can play around with the value to get the setting you're comfortable with.

Step 4: To make this setting remain, we need to add this to Gnome's list of startup applications.
Use the following script, save it with <anyfilename>.sh

 #!/bin/sh
xinput --set-prop "Razer Razer DeathAdder" "Device Accel Constant Deceleration" 5

Run chmod + x on the file above to give it permissions to execute.
Now, go to your System Settings -> Startup Applications and add this to your startup applications.

If you are on Arch Linux or other derivatives of Arch

Arch Linux has a wonderful Wiki page that tells you how to do it using razercfg if you own a Razer mouse.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/razer

Install Steam for Linux on openSUSE

Screenshot courtesy: +Marcel Kühlhorn

Valve has done a brilliant job by porting their Steam client to Linux. This has not only fostered more Linux gaming communities, but has also opened another option of developers working on developing games for the Linux platform.

There are many resources on the internet for how to get Steam on popular distributions like Ubuntu and Linux Mint. This post focuses purely on how to get Steam for Linux on openSUSE.

openSUSE has it's very own installer for Steam on the public games repository thanks to all the hard work from the openSUSE community.

The +Open Build Service has the package available and you could use the famous 1-click install process to get Steam for Linux. Click here to go there.

Have fun and enjoy the amazing gaming experience on your openSUSE installation :)

Keep Calm and Install Debian 7.0 Wheezy

Finally, after two years of being in development, the Debian development team announced that Debian 7.0 "Wheezy" is now out for people to download, try and install.

The Debian distribution has been known for its unwavering stability and rock-solid performance for many years.

Firstly, it is important to let you know that Debian Wheezy is based on the older and stable Linux 3.2 kernel. The latest version out is the 3.9 kernel used in other bleeding-edge distros like Fedora.


What's new on Wheezy?

Number 1 - Multiarch Support
One of the core foundations of Wheezy's development has been the Multiarch support. Technically, what this means is you can install 32-bit applications on your 64-bit installation of Debian Linux.

In their vision of building a true universal operating system, the Multiarch support allows cross building and better support for legacy 32-bit applications.

This will also enable live migrations from a 32-bit to a 64-bit application.

Number 2 - Deploying personal Clouds
Debian is a driving force for "freedom" and with that in mind, they've added additional tools that allow users to deploy their own personal clouds and services. In technicality, a full "Software as a Service" offering.

Wheezy will feature ready-to-use packages that can use with OpenStack and Xen Cloud Platform (XCP).

More on this can be read here.

Number 3 -Software-Speech Installation
For visually impaired users, who don't use a Braille device, this is possibly a blessing. The installation system is now available in 73 different languages out of which around a dozen of them are available for software speech synthesis.


Number 4 - UEFI Supported Boot
Although the developer community hasn't added support for "Secure Boot"* yet, Wheezy adds support for installation and booting using the UEFI for new 64-bit computers.

* - If your computer came with Windows 8 pre-installed, you'll have to disable secure boot and then use your system's UEFI menu to install Wheezy.


New Updates

Image Courtesy: Debian ;)

• Apache 2.2.22
• Asterisk 1.8.13.1
• GIMP 2.8.2
• an updated version of the GNOME desktop environment 3.4
• GNU Compiler Collection 4.7.2
• Icedove 10 (an unbranded version of Mozilla Thunderbird)
• Iceweasel 10 (an unbranded version of Mozilla Firefox)
• KDE Plasma Workspaces and KDE Applications 4.8.4
• kFreeBSD kernel 8.3 and 9.0
• LibreOffice 3.5.4
• Linux 3.2
• MySQL 5.5.30
• Nagios 3.4.1
• OpenJDK 6b27 and 7u3
• Perl 5.14.2
• PHP 5.4.4
• PostgreSQL 9.1
• Python 2.7.3 and 3.2.3
• Samba 3.6.6
• Tomcat 6.0.35 and 7.0.28
• Xen Hypervisor 4.1.4
• the Xfce 4.8 desktop environment
• X.Org 7.7
• more than 36,000 other ready-to-use software packages, built from nearly 17,500 source packages

Getting Debian 7.0 Wheezy

Head over to the Debian Project page for download methods, installation instructions and more.

There are more features on Debian 7.0 that I have not elaborated here. You can find all the missing information here.

Fix Missing Security Signatures OR Cannot install applications on Fedora 18 (F18)

Problem: PackageKit cannot install unsigned packages.

If you've just installed Fedora 18 or upgraded to Fedora 18, you may have noticed that you are unable to install 3rd party applications like Dropbox, Opera, Google Chrome, Skype and many others on your computer.

The installation exits with a message "Missing Security Signatures" whether it's installed directly or via a Terminal.

Why is this happening?

I was seeing the same issue on my fresh install of Fedora 18. Ideally, PackageKit-based tools allowed the installation of 3rd-party software by requesting root authentication.

After some searching and reading on the Internet, I found that this issue was caused by a bug that didn't allow PackageKit-based tools on Fedora 18 to install unsigned third-party packages anymore.

This bug did not affect the installation of official packages as they were signed with a trusted key anyway.

How to fix this?

The PackageKit maintainer released an update (PackageKit-0.8.7-1.fc18)

Update your computer as you would normally do to fix the problem.

New to Linux? - Read below

On a fresh install
Option 1: Just type "Software" in the Gnome search, open the tool and run an update. Let the update go through it's process.
Option 2: Open a terminal and type

su

yum update

This should run an update on your computer which will automatically update PackageKit.


Now that your Fedora 18 is updated, try installing anything, it should work fine :)