Is there a setting for scroll mouse direction in the guest OS?

[DeanWS]

I'm running Fusion 13 on a MacOS host running Apple silicon.  My guest OS is Ubuntu 22 arm64.  The normal Ubuntu key mappings are working correctly in the Ubuntu VM (Ctrl instead of Cmd, etc.).  One thing that is still not normal in the Ubuntu VM is the scroll mouse direction.  It still uses the MacOS convention of scrolling backwards (compared to Windows, Linux, and the rest of the world).

Is there a way to change the scroll direction?

[ColoradoMarmot]

That's odd - you have your mac set to scroll normally?  Mine works fine having reversed the host (and I agree MacOS default is backwards).

Did you install both open-vm-tools and open-vm-tools-desktop?

[Technogeezer]

There should be a setting in the Ubuntu guest's Settings (for the Mouse and Trackpad) that is labeled as "Natural Scrolling". What it will do is reverse the type of scrolling that you have defined on your Mac host. 

I for one do not think that the macOS default is "backwards". It's consistent with the way scrolling is done on iPhones and iPads with your finger. Swiping/scrolling up moves the content up, not the viewport.  It's only "backwards" because moving the viewport with scrolling is what you're used to.. But you do have the choice of which you want on macOS and many other operating systems, so you can get what you're most comfortable with. 

[DeanWS]

Turning on the Natural Scrolling in Ubuntu settings is what I needed.  Thanks.

When I say scrolling on MacOS is backwards I'm referencing the >90% of desktops in the world that run Windows or Linux.  The internet runs on Linux (and to a lesser extent on Windows).  Apple products are the one-off in the world, but Apple has a lot of brand loyalty.

[Technogeezer]

It’s not just brand loyalty. I counter that there are more mobile devices in the world than Windows and Linux devices that use the “natural” method of scrolling which is more intuitive on those devices. Having that choice (and default) makes perfect sense for trackpads, but not perhaps for mice  

Different, yes. Use what you’re familiar with, absolutely. But don’t denigrate the style as “backward” just because it’s different than what you’re used to. 

[ColoradoMarmot]

It's backwards compared to 50 years of mousing.  Now if we had a touchscreen mac, I might feel different....

[RDPetruska]

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 wrote:

It's backwards compared to 50 years of mousing.  Now if we had a touchscreen mac, I might feel different....

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Exactly!  Seems to me it's just Apple being Apple yet again here.  Of course, MS also has more than their fair share of boneheaded default settings.

[Technogeezer]

Yes, it's Apple being Apple. They tend to favor compatibility with their own ecosystem. 

Again, for touchpads, the default of natural scrolling matches the experience of touch devices such as iPads and iPhones. And that the "scrolling" on an Apple Magic Mouse mimics what you'd get on a touchpad. 

 It's a fair argument that the default for a traditional mouse with a wheel should not be natural scrolling. But it's understandable why Apple chose the defaults the way they did. And it's interesting that Windows (at least for touchpads) and Linux now offer the option for natural scrolling, so it can't be all bad.

I'll admit that natural scrolling on a mouse seemed decidedly un-natural at first after years of X11 on UNIX/Linux and Windows. I've gotten used to natural scrolling to the point where it's muscle memory now.

YMMV and I respect your opinion. Religious wars never turn out well for either side.

[ColoradoMarmot]

We can agree you're wrong and move on

What's really odd is when the host and guest do different things.  I find that with linux for example - clicking on scroll bars has very different results.