Using a Huion Kamvas Pro 13 tablet (non-wacom) on a multiscreen Elive Linux
It used to be fairly hard using non-wacom tablets on Linux but things are improving.
The above mentioned, reasonably cheap Huion tablet (aka gt_133) used to need very specific drivers from github ..... but not anymore.
It works out of the box upwards from Elive 3.8.8 - simply connecting and giving it a few seconds time to configure.
The screen part will require setting up to your liking through arandr (E16) or the screen tool (E23).
If you are cloning your main screen to the tablet you've got no worries and the pen will calibrate nicely.
If on the other hand you're setting it up as an additional 2nd (or 3rd screen) you have a little fiddling to do:
- You will need to map the pen/stylus to restrict itself to the tablet.
Doing so is fairly simple in a terminal:
- Find out what screen the tablet has using "xinput", which in general will be HDMI-2 on Elive.
- Get the pen's id from the "xinput" using the one mentioned in the "virtual pointer" part. (in my case that was 17)
- Map it to the tablet output using: "xinput map-to-output 17 HDMI-2" (or whatever id you have gotten)
And presto: The stylus is calibrated and kept into the tablet area but will also be accessible with the mouse like all the other screens. A point to remember is that you will need to remap every time you plug it in so note the needed id and screen. 😸 In time, if there is high demand we can script that procedure for all tablets .... for now it'll do.
Happy drawing!