Saturday 28 June 2014

Fedora 20 – Touchpad pointer speed slow after update

EDIT: This solution stops working when you shutdown your machine and turn it on again. So you have to use synclient again.

If you have updated Fedora 20 in the past two-three days, you may have noticed a slow down in touchpad pointer speed. In other words, you move your finger a centimetre on the touchpad and the cursor moves a centimetre on screen. This is annoyingly slow.

A few Fedora users have reported the bug. The issue will probably be solved before the next update. As a user, however, you do not have to put up with painfully slow speeds. You can make your pointer work normally now through synclient.

Here is how you do it:
  1. Open Konsole or Terminal.
  2. Login as root.
  3. Run the command synclient. (MaxSpeed and MinSpeed have been highlighted in light yellow.)
  4. Change MinSpeed to 5 or more and MaxSpeed to 10 or more. Run synclient MinSpeed=6 MaxSpeed=10.

This command (highlighted in light yellow) shall bring your touchpad pointer
speed to normal. 

Notes:
  • I've learnt the procedure from here.
  • It has worked for me.
  • I use Fedora 20 with KDE.

Wednesday 18 June 2014

Plan for the month of June

After six months and 18 days, I am not making progress in Korean. I am not learning Russian. I have not taken my first steps into programming. I have read less than 10 books. The results speak for themselves - I have failed as an autodidact and as a language learner. 

I have five months and 12 days left before 2014 ends. I want to make the most of this time. 

Instead of making long-term, vague plans, I will focus on concrete short-term goals. I do not know what I will do in July but here is what I plan to do in June: 

Books I will finish:
  • How Music Works; John Powell
  • Dragon's Egg; Robert L Forward
  • On Writing; Stephen King
  • Is That A Fish In Your Ear?: David Bellos
 Languages:
  • Assimil Chinese with Ease (revision of first 40 lessons)
  • Assimil Russian with Ease (one lesson a day)
Mathematics
  •  No plan. 
Computers
  • Head First Programming - Beginning Programming With Python  (three-four lessons)
I will write another post on June 30. It will be my report card.