XP-Pen Drawing Tablet

English Open Chat
41

The power button seems to have three modes: blue light (on), dim yellow light (standby), and off.

If I try to turn on the XP-PEN with no incoming HDMI signal, I see “No signal” and the XP-PEN goes into standby. In standby, when an HDMI signal is fed in and active, the XP-PEN immediately turns on.

I’ve yet to see “No external display” from KDE, which is also my preferred desktop too.

I’m wondering whether your GNU/Linux desktop is set up for dual monitors, like your Windows?

My normal setup is dual monitors, so I have that part already worked out. Actually, just plugging in a second monitor worked right away for me with GNU/Linux. The only thing I configured was the orientation of the monitors, i.e. which one was on the left and which one was on the right. I’m using an NVIDIA graphics card, so use NVIDIA X Server Settings to set the orientations.

My graphics card is old, GT260 series, so it can’t drive three monitors. I either have dual monitors OR one monitor and the XP-PEN. I use an HDMI bidirectional switcher to toggle between the two configurations. The monitor is 1920 x 1200, while the XP-PEN is 1920 x 1080. If I’m using the monitor and switching over to the XP-PEN, the XP-PEN will bounce the message “No support” around the XP-PEN screen, as it doesn’t like the 1920 x 1200 input. To fix, I have to go to NVIDIA X Server Settings and Auto Detect displays, select the XP-PEN display (UGD Artisr15.6Pro) and set it to 1920 x 1080. Switching back to the monitor isn’t a problem, but the monitor will only display 1920 x 1080 until I reconfigure with NVIDIA X Server Settings to 1920 x 1200.

This is probably too much info, but hopefully supplies some clues to what you need to do to have dual displays, one monitor and one XP-PEN.

Definitely grab Linux_Pentablet_V1.2.13.1.tar.gz(20200428), which provides Linux_Pentablet_V1.2.13.1 dir and Pentablet_Driver.sh (which runs as root and needs to be running while you’re using the XP-PEN). It will allow you to target the XP-PEN to just use its own screen instead of Mapping over two screens, as well as setting the pen buttons, tablet buttons and ring.

42

Yay! I have Tilt in Krita, along with all side buttons and ring. Thank you gfagan, dpitch40 and Digimend developers!

I followed all of gfagan’s instructions to install the dkms Digimend driver, post #29, though I’m on openSUSE Leap 15.1 with Kernel Version 4.1.2.14-lp151.28.87-default, not the more recent Leap 15.2 or kernels.

After that, I did run into same issues dpitch40 described in post #35, which was resolved in post #37.

Here’s what I ended up in configure-pentablet.sh:

#constrain pen to tablet screen
#******CUSTOMIZE
#command "xrandr" to list outputs, finde correct HDMI for this command: 
#xsetwacom set "UGTABLET 15.6 inch PenDisplay Pen stylus" MapToOutput HDMI-0
#xinput
# UGTABLET 15.6 inch PenDisplay Pen stylus  id=8    [slave  pointer  (2)]
#xrandr
# HDMI-0 connected 1920x1080+2560+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 3 44mm x 193mm
xsetwacom set 8 MapToOutput 1920x1080+2560+0

#stylus side buttons to middle and right click
#middle click makes note widget, rt-click => config desk => mouse action to change it
#xsetwacom set "UGTABLET 15.6 inch PenDisplay Pen stylus" button 2 button 2
#xsetwacom set "UGTABLET 15.6 inch PenDisplay Pen stylus" button 3 button 3
#button 1 is the nib itself, best leave on defult

#dial to scroll wheel
xsetwacom set "UGTABLET 15.6 inch PenDisplay Pad pad" button 13 4
xsetwacom set "UGTABLET 15.6 inch PenDisplay Pad pad" button 14 5

#express keys (4th key numbered 8): 4 modifier keys, undo, Esc, zoom
xsetwacom set "UGTABLET 15.6 inch PenDisplay Pad pad" button 1 key Ctrl z
xsetwacom set "UGTABLET 15.6 inch PenDisplay Pad pad" button 2 key Ctrl Shift z
xsetwacom set "UGTABLET 15.6 inch PenDisplay Pad pad" button 3 key Ctrl ]
xsetwacom set "UGTABLET 15.6 inch PenDisplay Pad pad" button 8 key Ctrl 
xsetwacom set "UGTABLET 15.6 inch PenDisplay Pad pad" button 9 key Insert
xsetwacom set "UGTABLET 15.6 inch PenDisplay Pad pad" button 10 key Ctrl x
xsetwacom set "UGTABLET 15.6 inch PenDisplay Pad pad" button 11 key Ctrl c
xsetwacom set "UGTABLET 15.6 inch PenDisplay Pad pad" button 12 key Ctrl v

Some things to note:

xsetwacom set 8 MapToOutput 1920x1080+2560+0

is derived from using

xinput to get the “8” from id of the UGTABLET 15.6 inch PenDisplay Pen stylus
xrandr to get the “1920x1080+2560+0” which is the XP-PEN screen on my system. I have a two monitor setup and the XP-PEN is to the right.

Default stylus mapping is what I want:

nib = left button
next to nib = middle button
furthest from nib = right button

Ring is zoom in/out.

Buttons top to bottom:

Undo
Redo
Rotate Right
Rotate Left

New Paint Layer
Cut
Copy
Paste

This is a handy list of key names for the configure-pentablet.sh file:

https://pastebin.com/aXGDkJTU

43

I have it working but don’t have keyboard listed from xinput, so I’m not sure it matters. On my system, I only see:

xinput
⎡ Virtual core pointer id=2 [master pointer (3)]
⎜ ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer id=4 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ UGTABLET 15.6 inch PenDisplay Pen stylus id=8 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ UGTABLET 15.6 inch PenDisplay Pad pad id=9 [slave pointer (2)]
etc

First, I suspect you will need to have /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-pentablet.conf list the right device.

% dmesg | grep 28bd

You should see something like this:

3.499141] usb 1-1: New USB device found, idVendor=28bd, idProduct=090d

though the idProduct will be different.

Put the values in MatchUSBID, like this:

MatchUSBID “28bd:090d”

with 090d what you find from dmesg.

Reboot for it to register.

Hopefully you’ll see that UGTABLET 13.3 inch PenDisplay as “Pen stylus” and “Pad pad” instead of “Mouse touch” and “stylus” with xinput.

Then check out my post #42.

44

Thanks for the answer. Your mentioning graphics cards made me realize what’s going on: back when I installed openSUSE, I disabled NVIDIA in order to get the graphical environment to launch. Guess I’ll need it again to make it work with HDMI.

45

Oh wait, another question. (Can posts be edited?) I’m seeing things around the internet about there being a relative mode and absolute mode in Pentablet.sh, but I don’t see these options anywhere in that program. How do I switch that?

46

I think you can only edit posts within a short time frame after posting.

Is there a reason why you would want relative mode? In that mode, it’s like using a mouse, where the pointer is moved from where you left it last (relative), instead of jumping to wherever the tip of the pen is.

Relative mode is more for mice and touchpads.

That said, I’ve switched over to using Digimend drivers, which uses absolute mode and provides tilt, which Pentablet_Driver.sh doesn’t support yet.

47

I ran into a situation where there were multiple “UGTABLET 15.6 inch PenDisplay Pad pad” listed with xsetwacom. One was id 19 and the other was id 21. xsetwacom instructed to use the id number instead of “UGTABLET 15.6 inch PenDisplay Pad pad” to specify the exact device but it still complained that it was “Invalid offset into Wacom Button Actions property.”

I think this problem cropped up with updating the kernel and the drivers needed to be rebuilt against it.

Ultimately, the fix was to uninstall and reinstall the Digimend drivers. If you installed into /opt/Digimend as suggested in the instructions above, then you just need to do this:

cd /opt/Digimend
make dkms_uninstall
make dkms_install

48

since I see this thread is not dead just to add my two cents.

xppen updated their application to xp-pen-pentablet_3.0.5.201126-2/

practically just a collection of bash scripts, udev rules and some binaries with their libs.

the udev rules by default want to install in /lib/udev/rules.d of course that needs to be changed to /etc/udev/rules.d

other than that things seem to: just work (personally I would be more happy with an opensource solution that just works)

49

The open source solution through Digimend works, though there are three drawbacks:

  1. user needs to compile the drivers, which is actually quite easy
  2. there’s no GUI, which XP-Pen provides
  3. no pen calibration, if the latest XP-Pen provides that

Does the latest XP-Pen support tilt, like the Digimend driver? And a pen calibration? (I haven’t had the time to try it yet.)

50

XP-PEN released post-beta .deb and .rpm packages.

I grabbed XP-PEN-Pentablet-3.0.5.201126-1.el7.centos.x86_64.rpm.zip, released Feb 4, 2021.

After unzipping, I installed using the usual zypper install command:

zypper in XP-PEN-Pentablet-3.0.5.201126-1.el7.centos.x86_64.rpm

Files were installed into /usr/lib/pentablet/

conf/  LGPL  lib/  pentablet  pentablet.sh  platforms/  resource.rcc

xppentablet shortcut was added to the launcher menu in Utilities.

Initially, launching xppentablet would produce a complaint of needing root. Running as root from a shell (/usr/lib/pentablet/pentablet.sh) removed the complaint, but both executions produced a window empty of menus and buttons.

Looking at commandline messages, I realized I needed to create /root/.local/share/pentablet/ to get log.txt.

mkdir /root/.local/share/pentablet

Executing again and looking at log.txt showed that xppentablet was looking for configuration files. I copied them over.

cp -p /usr/lib/pentablet/conf/* /root/.local/share/pentablet/

After this, xppentablet ran without issue from both the desktop (Utilities/xppentablet) and shell (/usr/lib/pentablet/pentablet.sh) without complaint.

What’s good…

There’s a user friendly GUI now to use the tablet. It handles targeting the drawing surface to multiple displays, just one or even part of one, pen buttons, express keys and roller. There’s pressure sensitivity curve configuration with real-time feedback and a diagnostic tool to see x, y and pressure, also in real-time.

What’s not so good…

There isn’t a pen tip configuration tool, like with other OS versions. This would allow for pen tip compensation if the tip doesn’t line up with the pointer. Tilt still isn’t supported, though there’s a Disable tilt in the program settings menu.

Overall, it’s a big improvement in making the tablet more accessible.

51

I just got a XP-Pen artist 16 pro and i was trying to follow allong but the command “xsetwacom list devices” is not recognised. i kept reading and seems that there is some updates not sure if following the post from last year is still the best option but the OS didnt recognise the pen input yet.

how i use the xsetwacom command, am i missing packages?

52

Overdue Update: XP-Pen released a new driver last month, and it’s slick - nice interface, support for tilt function, and easy install through yast package manager. In short, there’s no longer any reason to mess with Digimend and manually edit config files.

Sal, sorry I missed your post, but hopefully you discovered the new driver too. If not, you’ll probably like your tablet a lot better now!

Moderators, can you edit this thread to show this post first, for someone searching?

53

One problem, the driver configuration window appears at every login. In KDE, if you’re set up to start with a fresh session instead of persistent each login, you can set window rules for title Pentablet, Minimized Apply Initially and Skip Taskbar Forced. If you need that window, you can still find it with the Alt-Tab task switcher.

54

Unfortunately, I don’t believe there is anywhere on the earth where a firm is required to notify consumers of all changes to a product’s specifications and/or content. However, this does not make the practise any less sleazy or unethical.

55

After upgrading to Mint 21.2, I’m trying to do this again but having some issues. Whereas before xsetwacom was only detecting the pad, now it’s detecting everything except the pad.

xsetwacom --list devices
UGTABLET 15.6 inch PenDisplay Mouse touch	id: 11	type: TOUCH     
UGTABLET 15.6 inch PenDisplay stylus	id: 12	type: STYLUS    
UGTABLET 15.6 inch PenDisplay eraser	id: 18	type: ERASER

This is what I currently have installed (not worrying about tilt for now):

  • Linux Mint version 21.2
  • Linux kernel 5.15.0-88-generic
  • libwacom9 2.2.0-1
  • xserver-xorg-input-wacom 1:1.0.0-3ubuntu1
  • dkms 2.8.7-2ubuntu2.1mint1
  • digimend-dkms 11
  • I’ve installed the latest version of the XP-Pen Linux drivers from here. (The tar.gz installation)

I also installed the Xorg configuration file as recommended.

Does anyone know how I can dig deeper into why the tablet pad buttons are not being recognized?

56

Hi -

You’ve responded to quite an old thread, but also, as you’re using Mint rather than openSUSE, you’ll probably want to look for a Mint forum and ask them over there.

1 Like