How do I restore my mouse sensitivity/acceleration settings to their defaults

In Ubuntu 12.10 per-user mouse settings (and others too) are managed by settings daemon, and their configuration is stored in dconf database. To restore the default settings you want to set the values new users have on those fields = -1 (or resetting them).

Steps to set default per-user settings, using dconf-editor (low-level graphical tool):

1. Launch dconf-editor. If not installed, install using sudo apt-get install dconf-editor.
2. Browse/choose directory (on the left side) to /org/gnome/settings-daemon/peripherals/mouse.
3. Change values of motion-acceleration and motion-trheshold to -1.

Steps to set default per-user settings, using dconf (low-level terminal/console tool):

1. Check if it's there (run dconf help). If not, install using sudo apt-get install dconf.
2. Run in terminal dconf reset /org/gnome/settings-daemon/peripherals/mouse/motion-acceleration
3. Run in terminal dconf reset /org/gnome/settings-daemon/peripherals/mouse/motion-threshold

Steps to set default per-user settings, using gsettings (high-level terminal/console tool):

1. Check if it's there (run gsettings help). If not, install using sudo apt-get install libglib2.0-bin.
2. Run in terminal gsettings reset org.gnome.settings-daemon.peripherals.mouse motion-acceleration
3. Run in terminal gsettings reset org.gnome.settings-daemon.peripherals.mouse motion-threshold

While this doesn't directly answer your question. I found that the sliders to the left most position did not feel like the defaults at all after messing with them. After some research I found out the following information to fine tune how the mouse works which may be helpful to some other visiting this page.

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It looks like there is a rather complex set of tuning functions available for setting the mouse behavior. You can see all the settings here. The most important ones are the Acceleration Profile and Constant Deceleration. Here's what I found works for me, and how I set the values.

First we want to see what the properties are:

xinput list             # Displays connected devices (Find ID of your mouse)
xinput list-props <ID>  # Displays properties of device

Next, I put my desired settings inside a script called fixmouse.sh. I had to tinker a bit before I found these preferred values.

xinput set-prop 'Logitech USB-PS/2 Optical Mouse' 'Device Accel Profile' 2
xinput set-prop 'Logitech USB-PS/2 Optical Mouse' 'Device Accel Constant Deceleration' 2

Run the script and your mouse settings will take affect immediately. Your mileage may vary. Play with the different profiles and values for deceleration. The higher the Deceleration, the slower the mouse moves. It might also be a good idea to drop the initial values from xinput list-props to another script called unfixmouse.sh while you are tinkering.

What I've found is that deleting the gconf mouse folder resets everything to defaults. The slider bars don't change, must be cached somewhere in gnome.

1. Using the terminal:

   Open a terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T), perform the following command:

   rm -fr ~/.gconf/desktop/gnome/peripherals/mouse

2. From Nautilus:

   Press Ctrl+L

   Paste or type ~/.gconf/desktop/gnome/peripherals

   Open context menu (right click of mouse)

   Select the option Move to Trash