Been tinkering with alot of parameters in about:config, but I finally a viable solution:
We all know that changing mousewheel.default.delta_multiplier_Any particular Axis values changes the minimum number of lines being scrolled
But what this does not change is the sensitivity of the smallest “fling” gesture when scrolling with a touchpad.
Here’s the values you want to alter when trying make the scrolling feel more “tighter” or more “Windows like” or to fix the issue described above:
set apz.fling_friction 0.002 --> 0.005
apz.fling_min_velocity_threshold 0.5 --> 1.5
the above will make the smooth scrolling with touchpad actually feel smooth and in control. As opposed to simply changing the delta multiplier values.
Holy cow I will test this later. My touchpad even on a regular DPI display goes crazy sometimes.
Yeah, this fix mainly mitigates the “looseness” when scrolling with a touchpad. min_velocity_threshold is the parameter that controls how kinetic the smallest fling is. The higher the value, the more tight it’ll be, i.e. the lesser the velocity of the minimum fling will be
apz_fling_friction controls how long the effect of a complete fling lasts, how rough the scroll should be. Lowering the value will “lubricate” the scroll. Increasing it will do the opposite, which is what we did here.
Mozilla really should have made these values the default, since HiDPI displays behave differently with touchpads on Linux than they do with Windows… And it’s not exactly easy for someone new to sit down and check different scroll related parameters to fix such annoying issues.
I can attest that this also helped me as well. Thank you!
Holy shit, this actually did make a huge difference for me. I normally follow this reddit post https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/7ei43x/comment/dq5afi0/, and it does really good for me. Then I’d also change mousewheel.default.delta_multiplier_y to between 25 and 40 and I’m set. These two you posted made it even better. Thank you for this. Gonna save this post for future reference
yeah, the scrolling behaviour on Linux was driving me nuts. Touchpad on Linux isn’t in a very good shape already. Yesterday, I decided that enough was enough lol. And I sat down to hunt the values myself
I actually like Linux defaults as they are but don’t like Windows defaults, on Windows it feels too slow to me. I have 17.3 inch 1080p display.
Just don’t use Wayland. Problem fixed!
Smooth touchpad scrolling on Firefox is a Wayland exclusive feature. I force Wayland for Firefox only for this feature.
how do we force wayland for particular apps when logged into an x11 session?
shudder gross. Wayland is the systemd of display protocols.
If only. Systemd is mature to the point it is the de facto init system and used by almost all distros. Wayland and its compositors are still in development.
Systemd was that way. It was the wide adoption forcing it down our throats that allowed it to mature. Wayland is doing that now.
