Mousepointer - size and color

One of the refinements that I did enjoy with Linux Mint was being able to change the size of my mouse pointer as well as its color.

I kept the instructions (for Mint) for that and am wondering if those might work in Zorin? I looked in Settings, found Mouse & Touchpad, but only the speed/acceleration/scrolling are options for one's mouse.

Has anyone changed their mousepointer's size and/or color? How?

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If Mint XFCE, maybe.
But if Mint Cinnamon, you would need to install and use Cinnamon D.E. on Zorin OS.

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Yes it was Mint Cinnamon :face_with_diagonal_mouth:. A D.E. is a new undertaking for me. Guess I need to look into that first. Thanks for insights!

Well within your ability.
I also use Cinnamon on Zorin OS installed with

sudo apt install cinnamon cinnamon-core

In the meantime, though; On Zorin Core in Settings, do you see Accessibility Settings?
It should have a setting there for cursor size.

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Much thanks Aravisian. I did a search on this forum and found the tutorial on D E changes. (your direct command is VERY appreciated) Looking at Accessibility doesn't provide any change in size nor color there. Oh well, today's project is ..... :wink:

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And I assume you did not see it in mouse and cursor settings... It is there on Zorin Lite.
But I do not know about Core.

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On the D E tutorial link, this was the command for Cinnamon -

sudo apt install cinnamon-desktop-environment

I did input the command line you shared into the terminal. It did its thing, then I restarted my laptop. Can't see any mention of Cinnamon or alternative D E. Wondering now what I have/don't have? Where would I look to see a new D E?

I'm also wondering if I did make changes (on the Cinnamon DE), would that be the only place I would enjoy that changed mousepointer? Or would it 'update' Zorin to look the same?

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You properly need to to use lightDM instead of GDM.

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As Storm pointed out - LightDm would work better.
If using GDM, you need to hunt down that little gear icon.

sudo apt install lightdm lightdm-gtk-greeter-settings

Then run:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure gdm3

Select LightDM from the options list.

Reboot and you should find your D.E. Selection on the Upper Right side.

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Thanks for your reply, but I am clueless about what 'lightDM' AND GDM are :sob:

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It's different login managers. :slight_smile:
I think @Aravisian wrote some guides about lightDM on this forum you can find.

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Thanks, will do.

I found the setting in Gnome Control Center- the default settings app in Zorin Core:

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Looks great but can't find the 'Gnome Control Center'. Any clues/hints?

It should come up in the app menu as just Settings
But you can also tap alt+F2and enter in gnome-control-center

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Had to get my glasses on and increase image size - but found your example under Accessibility and Cursor size - yippee!!! I an now see the mouse pointer easily.

Here are the notes I took when I changed the mouse pointer color on Mint (cinnamon) -

> I found and downloaded a 'red' color - DMZ-Red

> https://www.gnome-look.org/p/999573/

> into my download files. But got stumped by the instructions -
>
> "Simply copy the folder entitled "DMZ-Red" in the tar archive to the the folder entitled "DMZ-Red" in the tar archive to the /usr/share/icons/ directory.."
>
> I found the DMZ-Red folder in my Download folder, copied it but there is NO 'Paste' option for inserting that into the /usr/share/icons/ directory (folder?)
>
> What am I doing wrong? (do I Archive the file at download? Extract the files or NOT? Any help would be appreciated.

Extract it in your download folder, then right click on an empty area of the file list and click "open as root", then on the new window select click once on the folder [DMZ-Red] and then right click on it and choose copy then browse to the /usr/share/icons folder and paste it there.

If you wanna learn why you need to do it it is because the /usr folder is a folder that your normal user can't write to(for security reasons), so you need to do it as root.

Do you think those instructions could work on Zorin? Or maybe I'm pushing my luck? :roll_eyes:

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Yes, extracting the directory and then placing the Cursor Icon set in either /usr/share/icons or ~/.local/share/icons or ~/.icons will work. Any of the above locations will work. The first location is in Root and is System-wide. The other two locations are in Home and apply only to the user.

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Will give that a go Aravisian and then come back to Check Solution so others can learn from this too.

I have been using custom mouse cursors on Zorin OS since day one I switched to it.:wink:
Most things that work in Mint should still work in Zorin OS since they are both Ubuntu based.

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Have come across one glitch -

  1. did locate and down load color (red)
  2. did download to Downloads folder
  3. extracted (red) file but when I right clicked the [extracted] folder, there was no "Open as root" option. I also could not find a /usr/share/icons folder. I'm supposing not being in 'root' was the stopping point?