How to make drawing tablet work as an input device?

[Remi-Godin]

Hopefully this is the right place to ask, and I'm not sure if this is an issue on my end, or an issue with Cosmic or Pop!_OS version 24.04, so did not want to open an issue for it.

This is on a fresh install of Pop!_OS 24.04 with Cosmic DE. My Huion 1060p, which was previously working on Pop!_OS version 22.04, is not working anymore, and I'm looking for help to make it work again.

I have installed the official Huion drivers, and libinput is detecting events properly, would it be location, tilt, pressure, everything is seemingly detected properly. The buttons on the tablet are working, and the buttons on the pen itself are working, but the pen is not working as an input device to control the mouse or be used as a drawing/sculpting device in software.

Here is an example output from libinput:

                                                          X     Y                 
 event29  TABLET_TOOL_AXIS        +153.267s		6.83*/3.86*	tilt: -0.53/-0.53	pressure: 0.68*
 event29  TABLET_TOOL_AXIS        +153.272s		6.81*/3.91*	tilt: -0.53/-0.53	pressure: 0.54*
 event29  TABLET_TOOL_AXIS        +153.277s		6.79*/3.96*	tilt: -0.53/-0.53	pressure: 0.40*
 event29  TABLET_TOOL_AXIS        +153.281s		6.78*/4.01*	tilt: -0.53/-0.53	pressure: 0.26*
 event29  TABLET_TOOL_AXIS        +153.286s		6.77*/4.05*	tilt: -0.53/-0.53	pressure: 0.14*
 event29  TABLET_TOOL_AXIS        +153.291s		6.76*/4.10*	tilt: -0.53/-0.53	pressure: 0.05*

I marked the X and Y axis for reference. X goes from 0.00 to 7.85, and Y goes from 0.00 to 4.92, with (0.00,0.00) being the top left corner of the tablet, and (7.85,4.92) being the bottom right.

I would appreciate any help into figuring out how to make it work. I don't know if I have to set something up using libinput, but can't seem to find anything on this subject.

Thanks!

[Drakulix]

Your tablet currently needs to be manually map to an output.

In the interest of not repeating myself, here is a link to an issue, where I explained that yesterday: pop-os/cosmic-comp#1495

Note that the tablet support definitely is not fleshed out so far!

[Remi-Godin]

Are you kidding me! That was it?! Thanks so much!!! Been scratching my head for a few days before coming here.

I searched for "drawing tablet" and did not find any relevant issues or discussions; I should have looked for "graphics tablet" too, but I figured graphics tablet are usually describing tablets with a built-in display, as opposed to a drawing "pad".

Solution

For the sake of completing this thread for future searchers, the only thing I did (other than install the official Huion drivers) was add the input_devices file to ~/.config/cosmic/com.system76.CosmicComp/v1/ as described in pop-os/cosmic-comp#1495, and only added the following entry:

{
	"HUION 256C PEN STYLUS": ( // Your device name goes here
		state: Enabled,
		map_to_output: Some("DP-1") // Your monitor name goes here
	)
}

This was after confirming the tablet worked and device name through libinput debug-events and libinput list-devices , and the monitor name through xrandr --listactivemonitors.

No reboot needed or anything.

[LBrinston]

Apologies for dredging this back up but I've tried the above with an older (dumber) Huion HS610 to no avail.

What I have tried:

1. Huion HS610 drivers Driver_15.0.0.162.deb(Ubuntu)
2. OpenTabletDriver opentabletdriver-0.6.5.1-1-x64.deb

with ~/.config/cosmic/com.system76.CosmicComp/v1/input_devices:

{
 "Huion 256C PEN STYLUS": (
    state: Enabled,
    map_to_output: Some("DP-2"),
  ),
  "Huion Tablet": (
    state: Enabled,
    map_to_output: Some("DP-2")
  ),
  "Huion Mouse": (
    state: Enabled,
    map_to_output: Some("DP-2")
  ),
   "Huion keyboard": (
    state: Enabled,
    map_to_output: Some("DP-2")
  )
}

Both drivers do detect the tablet and in their own little calibrate/preview windows show the coordinates change as I move the stylus . libinput debug-events also detects events from the tablet - except for the scroll wheel).

However, if I try using the tablet/stylus anywhere outside of the drivers preview modes I get nothing - no mouse movement, no clicks, nothing. I've tried this on the desktop, rnote, xournalpp, and krita. This smells to me of missing some sort of permission but I don't know enough about wayland compositors to debug any deeper.

Additional info

I'm not sure if I need all four mappings but libinput list-devices does show 4 separate devices:

Device:           Huion Mouse
Kernel:           /dev/input/event23
Group:            7
Seat:             seat0, default
Capabilities:     pointer
Tap-to-click:     n/a
Tap-and-drag:     n/a
Tap drag lock:    n/a
Left-handed:      disabled
Nat.scrolling:    disabled
Middle emulation: disabled
Calibration:      n/a
Scroll methods:   button
Click methods:    none
Disable-w-typing: n/a
Disable-w-trackpointing: n/a
Accel profiles:   flat *adaptive custom
Rotation:         0.0

Device:           HUION 256C PEN STYLUS
Kernel:           /dev/input/event21
Group:            9
Seat:             seat0, default
Size:             8x5mm
Capabilities:     tablet
Tap-to-click:     n/a
Tap-and-drag:     n/a
Tap drag lock:    n/a
Left-handed:      disabled
Nat.scrolling:    n/a
Middle emulation: n/a
Calibration:      n/a
Scroll methods:   none
Click methods:    none
Disable-w-typing: n/a
Disable-w-trackpointing: n/a
Accel profiles:   none
Rotation:         n/a

Device:           Huion Tablet
Kernel:           /dev/input/event19
Group:            10
Seat:             seat0, default
Size:             255x159mm
Capabilities:     tablet
Tap-to-click:     n/a
Tap-and-drag:     n/a
Tap drag lock:    n/a
Left-handed:      disabled
Nat.scrolling:    n/a
Middle emulation: n/a
Calibration:      identity matrix
Scroll methods:   none
Click methods:    none
Disable-w-typing: n/a
Disable-w-trackpointing: n/a
Accel profiles:   none
Rotation:         n/a

Device:           Huion Tablet
Kernel:           /dev/input/event20
Group:            11
Seat:             seat0, default
Size:             255x159mm
Capabilities:     tablet
Tap-to-click:     n/a
Tap-and-drag:     n/a
Tap drag lock:    n/a
Left-handed:      disabled
Nat.scrolling:    n/a
Middle emulation: n/a
Calibration:      identity matrix
Scroll methods:   none
Click methods:    none
Disable-w-typing: n/a
Disable-w-trackpointing: n/a
Accel profiles:   none
Rotation:         n/a

Poking through logs I did notice this:
Adjusting brush stroke tool on the touch wheel triggers this:

Sep 24 20:18:26 pop-os cosmic-comp[2227]: Toplevel for foreign-toplevel-list not registered for cosmic-toplevel-info.

I have also tried mapping the OpenTabletDriver virtual artists tablet but same issue.

 "OpenTabletDriver Virtual Artist Tablet": (
    state: Enabled,
    map_to_output: Some("DP-2")
  )