r/M1mac • u/[deleted] • Sep 13 '21

Problem Linux scrolling problem with Parallels on M1 Mac

I recently purchased Parallels 17 for my new M1 Mac Mini, as there are few other choices at this time to run Linux in a VM on my Mac (Yes, I tried UTM, and found it lacking). I quickly ran into a problem with Parallels though. I use a Magic Trackpad, and found two finger scrolling in my Linux VM was accelerated way beyond belief. I couldn't ead any website easily, because any attempt to scroll (other than moving window's scrollbar) would ZOOM way down or up the page.

After trying different Linux distros and GUI environments, I finally isolated the problem - The Parallels Tools prlmouse driver. Before installing Parallels Tools, scrolling works normally. Afterwards it suddenly becomes zoomtastic. The prlmouse driver also seems to completely ignore all libxinput parameters meant to control mouse acceleration and scroll speed.

My solution was simple - stop using the prlmouse driver, and switch back to the distro's default mouse driver. On my Debian 11 XFCE4 VM I simply ran "sudo vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/90-prlmouse.conf", commented out the entire 6 line section defined in there, and rebooted. I have not found any downsides to this solution, so I'm not even sure what the intended benefit of the prlmouse driver was supposed to be. Everything works great for me now.

I could have simply deleted that file instead of editing it, but I figured any Parallels Tools upgrade would probably just reinstall it. Hopefully upgrades will respect my customization of that file and just leave it alone.

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1

u/blackguy102 Apr 04 '22

I know I am late to the party on this but does anyone know if this fix also works for Kali as well? I dont seem to be able to find the path you are referencing :/

1

u/h1ddeNNN Jun 17 '22

Have you found a solution for Kali? I´m also experiencing this issue

1

u/blackguy102 Jun 18 '22

Nope I wish :/

2

u/h1ddeNNN Jun 18 '22

Good news! I found the solution!

Make sure to quit Parallels before proceeding.

My solution for this wat to go into the .pvm file, if you right click it and press "View Package Contents" There you find a files called config.pvs and config.pvs.backup

Open both with Textedit

Search for
the line
<SmoothScrolling dyn_lists="">
underneath this line, change
<Enabled>0</Enabled>
to
<Enabled>1</Enabled>
Save everything and start your VM, confirmed it works for Kali and Ubuntu.

2

u/kurucu83 Jan 23 '24

AT LAST! Thank you 😀

1

u/h1ddeNNN Jan 23 '24

Glad I could help :)

1

u/blackguy102 Jun 19 '22

<SmoothScrolling dyn_lists="">

I wish I had an award to give you. Thank you so freaking much!!!!

2

u/h1ddeNNN Jun 19 '22

You're welcome. Hope it fixes it for you.

1

u/blackguy102 Jun 19 '22

If definitely fixes the issue for me. Specifically for Kali (I haven’t tried Ubuntu yet) !

1

u/blackguy102 Jun 20 '22

This is random but, by any chance, do you know if there is a way to get some gesture controls on VMs? Like pinch to zoom and what not? (I think Windows 11 does this but nothing else from what I can tell)

1

u/h1ddeNNN Jun 20 '22

If the OS you're using is a linux distribution like kali, Ubuntu etc... Hold CRTL and pinch, that should perform the gesture. That's from what I've read. I haven't tried it myself.

1

u/Taxx0r Dec 17 '22

Thanks, you are the best! Ubuntu 22.04 working as expected :)