Comment 179 for bug 308191

I have wrestled with this lots, and the problem is that no two people describe it as the same problem.

For some people, the mouse/touchpad driver or module is just wrong. I believe they are the minority.

The majority are people who have working devices, but can't figure how to configure them and the point-and-click tools that keep getting thrown about just make it worse.

If you can make settings work in the terminal with synclient, I wrote down how you can make those fixes permanent.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-input-synaptics/+bug/463735/comments/14

For Gnome users, the magic bullet is to stop using the mouse configure menu, turn off gnome-settings-daemon's control of your touchpad, and let X settings get it just right.