How do I change cursor/mouse pointer?

[Dennis G. Wicks]

Greetings;

Search as I may I can not find how to do this.

I am running gnome and a hi-res screen. My cursor and
mouse pointer are too small to see easily on the
screen. How do I make them bigger?

Many TIA!
Dennis

[H.S.]

Post by Dennis G. Wicks
Greetings;
Search as I may I can not find how to do this.
I am running gnome and a hi-res screen. My cursor and mouse pointer are
too small to see easily on the screen. How do I make them bigger?
Many TIA!
Dennis

On debian Lenny:

{~}$> apt-cache search cursors
big-cursor - larger mouse cursors for X
comixcursors - X11 mouse theme with a comic feeling
crystalcursors - X11 mouse theme with the crystal look&feel
dmz-cursor-theme - Style neutral, scalable cursor theme
icoutils - Create and extract MS Windows icons and cursors
libxcursor1 - X cursor management library
oxygencursors - Oxygen mouse cursor theme
python-psycopg2 - Python module for PostgreSQL
uqm - The Ur-Quan Masters - An inter-galatic adventure game
uqm-russian - Russian addon for 'The Ur-Quan Masters' game
uqm-content - The Ur-Quan Masters - Game data files


So perhaps you want to try big-cursor package.

->HS

[Manu Hack]

Post by Dennis G. Wicks
Greetings;
Search as I may I can not find how to do this.
I am running gnome and a hi-res screen. My cursor and mouse pointer are
too small to see easily on the screen. How do I make them bigger?

sudo apt-get install chameleon-cursor-theme

(or any other theme you like)

sudo update-alternatives --config x-cursor-theme

and choose the one you like. For example I chose
/usr/share/icons/Chameleon-Pearl-Large/cursor.theme, which is large enough
for me.

Manu

[Dennis G. Wicks]

Post by Dennis G. Wicks
Greetings;
Search as I may I can not find how to do this.
I am running gnome and a hi-res screen. My cursor and mouse pointer
are too small to see easily on the screen. How do I make them bigger?

Sorry, I tried both suggestions and I don't see any
changes of differences in anything.

Dennis

[H.S.]

Sorry, I tried both suggestions and I don't see any changes of
differences in anything.
Dennis

Could you list the steps and actions you tried?

[Dennis G. Wicks]

Post by H.S.

Sorry, I tried both suggestions and I don't see any changes of
differences in anything.
Dennis

Could you list the steps and actions you tried?
{~}$> apt-cache search cursors
big-cursor - larger mouse cursors for X
comixcursors - X11 mouse theme with a comic feeling
crystalcursors - X11 mouse theme with the crystal look&feel
dmz-cursor-theme - Style neutral, scalable cursor theme
icoutils - Create and extract MS Windows icons and cursors
libxcursor1 - X cursor management library
oxygencursors - Oxygen mouse cursor theme
python-psycopg2 - Python module for PostgreSQL
uqm - The Ur-Quan Masters - An inter-galatic adventure game
uqm-russian - Russian addon for 'The Ur-Quan Masters' game
uqm-content - The Ur-Quan Masters - Game data files

Then aptitude install big-cursor

Nothing changed so I went searching through Gnome menus
for anything to do with mouse or cursor and found
nothing that would give me any choices to change
cursors or mouse pointers.

Post by H.S.
update-alternatives --config x-cursor-theme

Chose a couple different ones and again nothing
changed. Again I could find nothing in Gnome that
allowed me to change cursors or mouse pointers.

Is there something else I need to do?

Thanks!
Dennis

[NN_il_Confusionario]

Post by Dennis G. Wicks
Then aptitude install big-cursor
Nothing changed
Is there something else I need to do?

less /usr/share/doc/big-cursor/README.Debian

(this is a useful general rule)

[Dennis G. Wicks]

Greetings;

Well, thank you for that pointer because that is
nowhere near intuitive! Is there something wrong with
using man, I wonder? Because that is the first thing I
tried, then man -k cursor, then info big-cursor. No man
and no info.

Anyway, the referenced file was not particularly
enlightening either. I commented out the entry
"Xcursor.theme: whiteglass" as suggested and started a
new session for a new user and I still have the same
small cursors and mouse pointers.

Hmm ... is "restart X" code for "shutdown restart"?

Anyway, thanks for the help!
Dennis

NN_il_Confusionario wrote the following on 05/07/2008

Post by NN_il_Confusionario

Post by Dennis G. Wicks
Then aptitude install big-cursor
Nothing changed
Is there something else I need to do?

less /usr/share/doc/big-cursor/README.Debian
(this is a useful general rule)

[NN_il_Confusionario]

Post by NN_il_Confusionario
less /usr/share/doc/big-cursor/README.Debian
(this is a useful general rule)

that is nowhere near intuitive!

many debian packages have documentation in /usr/share/doc/$PACKAGENAME
and often there is a README.Debian (or similar names) with debian
specific post-installation instructions.

new session for a new user and I still have the same
small cursors and mouse pointers.

you do not need a new "session" but a new istance of the X server (or
possibly not, as the above file explains). If you are using gdm / kdm /
xdm / wdm ... (as opposed to startx), then a logout does NOT start a new
istance of the X server, since the display manager ?dm keeps alive the
old istance of X.

You can restart the display manager
/etc/init.d/gdm restart
and/or kill the X server (and so lose all unsaved data in your session)
from the X server itself (unless disabled in xorg.conf): <alt><ctrl><backspace>
with a console command: killall X
and/or
log in in console and manually start a new X istance:
startx -- :1

[Dennis G. Wicks]

NN_il_Confusionario wrote the following on 05/08/2008

Post by NN_il_Confusionario

Post by NN_il_Confusionario
less /usr/share/doc/big-cursor/README.Debian
(this is a useful general rule)

that is nowhere near intuitive!

many debian packages have documentation in /usr/share/doc/$PACKAGENAME
and often there is a README.Debian (or similar names) with debian
specific post-installation instructions.

new session for a new user and I still have the same
small cursors and mouse pointers.

you do not need a new "session" but a new istance of the X server (or
possibly not, as the above file explains). If you are using gdm / kdm /
xdm / wdm ... (as opposed to startx), then a logout does NOT start a new
istance of the X server, since the display manager ?dm keeps alive the
old istance of X.
You can restart the display manager
/etc/init.d/gdm restart
and/or kill the X server (and so lose all unsaved data in your session)
from the X server itself (unless disabled in xorg.conf): <alt><ctrl><backspace>
with a console command: killall X
and/or
startx -- :1

OK, I started a third instance by logging on a third
linux user on a console (tty3) and running startx -- :2
and there was no difference in the new session.

I have two other instances(?) of x-session-manager
running. Do I have to get all of these shutdown for the
change to take effect?

Thanks for the help! (My head hurts!)
Dennis

[Manu Hack]

Post by NN_il_Confusionario

Post by NN_il_Confusionario
less /usr/share/doc/big-cursor/README.Debian
(this is a useful general rule)

that is nowhere near intuitive!

many debian packages have documentation in /usr/share/doc/$PACKAGENAME
and often there is a README.Debian (or similar names) with debian specific
post-installation instructions.
new session for a new user and I still have the same small cursors and

mouse pointers.

you do not need a new "session" but a new istance of the X server (or
possibly not, as the above file explains). If you are using gdm / kdm /
xdm / wdm ... (as opposed to startx), then a logout does NOT start a new
istance of the X server, since the display manager ?dm keeps alive the
old istance of X.
You can restart the display manager /etc/init.d/gdm restart
and/or kill the X server (and so lose all unsaved data in your session)
<alt><ctrl><backspace>
with a console command: killall X
and/or
startx -- :1

OK, I started a third instance by logging on a third linux user on a
console (tty3) and running startx -- :2
and there was no difference in the new session.
I have two other instances(?) of x-session-manager running. Do I have to
get all of these shutdown for the change to take effect?

Okay, let me try one more time. If you have ooffice, try the following:

sudo update-alternatives --config x-cursor-theme

choose something dfferent from what you're using. Then run ooffice. On the
area of the openoffice windows, hope you can see the dfference.

I don't know exactly why, but on my machine after running
update-alternatives, the cursor won't change immediately but if I run
ooffice, after that I can always see the change on the openoffice windows.

Manu

[Michelle Konzack]

Post by Manu Hack
I don't know exactly why, but on my machine after running
update-alternatives, the cursor won't change immediately but if I run
ooffice, after that I can always see the change on the openoffice windows.

------------------------ END OF REPLIED MESSAGE ------------------------

They are read in whenever you start a X application.

Sorry, my website is currently "under construction" but I hope, I can
set it in the next weeks (have to create all E-Mails, subdomains and
VHosts) and will put my whole private Debian package archive online.

There you will find some nice tools where you can change xcursors,
languages and more "On-The-Fly".

Link will be <http://www.tamay-dogan.net/> which was setup for two days
but has curently only the default page of my hoster online. If the
current "Vallendor EDV Service" default page is gone, look at the right
side for the Link "Debian GNU/Linux Resources".

Thanks, Greetings and nice Day
Michelle Konzack
Systemadministrator
24V Electronic Engineer
Tamay Dogan Network
Debian GNU/Linux Consultant

[NN_il_Confusionario]

Post by Dennis G. Wicks
OK, I started a third instance by logging on a third
linux user on a console (tty3) and running startx -- :2
and there was no difference in the new session.
I have two other instances(?) of x-session-manager
running. Do I have to get all of these shutdown for the
change to take effect?

Unforunately I have no idea of the "evil" things x-session-manager is
able to do. I tried the big-cursor package only once, and it was on a
machine which used X only one istance at a time and by means of startx
with a "simple" window manager (pwm).

An experienced used could check with strace, lsof, fuser ... what files
are your istances of X using. For a less experienced user, the fastest
thing should be stopping all X istances and try again.

[Michelle Konzack]

Post by NN_il_Confusionario
you do not need a new "session" but a new istance of the X server (or
possibly not, as the above file explains). If you are using gdm / kdm /
xdm / wdm ... (as opposed to startx), then a logout does NOT start a new
istance of the X server, since the display manager ?dm keeps alive the
old istance of X.

WHY do you need an NEW INSTANCE OF THE X SEVRER?

I have never done this before since 9 years. If I change the
"xcursor" theme it change immediatly... (at least for fvwm)


Thanks, Greetings and nice Day
Michelle Konzack
Systemadministrator
24V Electronic Engineer
Tamay Dogan Network
Debian GNU/Linux Consultant

[Manu Hack]

Post by Dennis G. Wicks

Post by H.S.

Sorry, I tried both suggestions and I don't see any changes of
differences in anything.
Dennis

Could you list the steps and actions you tried?
{~}$> apt-cache search cursors
big-cursor - larger mouse cursors for X
comixcursors - X11 mouse theme with a comic feeling
crystalcursors - X11 mouse theme with the crystal look&feel
dmz-cursor-theme - Style neutral, scalable cursor theme
icoutils - Create and extract MS Windows icons and cursors
libxcursor1 - X cursor management library
oxygencursors - Oxygen mouse cursor theme
python-psycopg2 - Python module for PostgreSQL
uqm - The Ur-Quan Masters - An inter-galatic adventure game
uqm-russian - Russian addon for 'The Ur-Quan Masters' game
uqm-content - The Ur-Quan Masters - Game data files

Then aptitude install big-cursor
Nothing changed so I went searching through Gnome menus for anything to do
with mouse or cursor and found nothing that would give me any choices to
change cursors or mouse pointers.
update-alternatives --config x-cursor-theme
Chose a couple different ones and again nothing changed. Again I could
find nothing in Gnome that allowed me to change cursors or mouse pointers.
Is there something else I need to do?

I'm using openbox, and it works for me. But note that the change is not
immediate. While it's not necessary to restart X, did you try restarting X
and see if it changes after that?

Manu

[H.S.]

Post by Dennis G. Wicks
Then aptitude install big-cursor
Nothing changed so I went searching through Gnome menus for anything to
do with mouse or cursor and found nothing that would give me any choices
to change cursors or mouse pointers.

Post by Manu Hack
update-alternatives --config x-cursor-theme

Chose a couple different ones and again nothing changed. Again I could
find nothing in Gnome that allowed me to change cursors or mouse pointers.
Is there something else I need to do?
Thanks!
Dennis

hmm .. I haven't tried it, but after installing these large cursor
themes, did you try to poke around appearance related preferences of
your desktop env. and try to find if you need to actually change the
theme of the cursor as an option? Could be worth looking. I say this
because I have in the past installed different mouse cursor themes and I
needed to change those myself for the change to take effect (just like
one changes desktop fonts, window decorations, etc.).

And, not sure about this, you may need to relogin into your desktop for
changes to take effect.

->HS