"Shake to locate cursor" feature

You can do this on any Gnome based distro using dconf (part of GNOME, replacement for GConf) on org.gnome.settings-daemon.peripherals.mouse, parameter locate-pointer.

CLI way

gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.peripherals.mouse locate-pointer true

On newer versions of Gnome seems to be on this path:

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface locate-pointer true

GUI way

Open dconf-editor (might be installed first) and go to one of the above paths:

Warning

Even with Ubuntu 16.04 and Nautilus 3.14.3 if I turn on this option I suffer this bug that don't let me copy filenames on Nautilus. Working now on Ubuntu 18.04, Gnome 3.28.4.

Reference

• settings - How do I turn off "show mouse" when I press Ctrl? - Ask Ubuntu

In Linux Mint (18.1) you can go to Preferences > Mouse and, under Locate Pointer you can check a box that will tell the system to "Show position of pointer when the Control key is pressed".

I'm not sure if something similar is available on other distros.

Not quite what you asked for. Possibly useful?