Wacom drawing tablet and Ubuntu Linux?

[Karl Auer]

On Tue, 2025-11-18 at 16:55 +0000, Ian Bruntlett wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I have looked at:
> https://askubuntu.com/questions/284284/wacom-tablet-support-in-ubuntu
> 
> I was wondering if anyone here had 1) recent experience of using a
> Wacom
> drawing tablet and 2) what software you used.

I used one for a while. My notes are sparse though:


 - Need the Wacom driver from here: https://linuxwacom.github.io/
 - Install from source
 - It needs to be built against the current Linux headers etc.
 - If you update the kernel, rerun configure, make, make install.
 - Then reboot. It might be possible to just reload the driver.

That information is four years old, so take it with a grain of salt.
The website mentioned now says that the drivers are preinstalled in
most distros, so it might be as simple as plugging it in nowadays.

> It looks like the tablet works like a mouse in LibreOffice Draw which
> would be quite helpful.

It's really good, as you would expect, for drawing. And yes, unless
handled in more sophisticated ways by drawing programs (that can do
things like detect pressure, stylus angle and so on) it emulates a
mouse. It has two modes, absolute and relative. Absolute means that if
you lift the stylus and put it down somewhere else, the cursor jumps to
that point (the tablet surface resolution is mapped to the screen
resolution). Relative means that it doesn't detect position, only
movement.

I never found absolute mode much use, but for actual drawing,
especially technical drawing, I imagine it would be invaluable. I used
mine for quick disgrams, whiteboarding and so on (artistic ability <
0).

Regards, K.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au, he/him)
http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer