Pen Input on Linux
I use ElementaryOS, so these instructions will be most relevant for Ubuntu and Debian like distributions. For further reference, the pen/display tablet I am calibrating is an Ugee 1910b.
For calibrating the pen, you can use xinput_calibrator. It’ll display four points to calibrate based on, which isn’t ideal - I’m still looking for a nine point calibrator. To install it, run
sudo apt install xinput-calibrator
For some systems, xinput_calibrator won’t work out of the box. Following this AskUbuntu answer, I swapped libinput for evdev.
sudo apt install xserver-xorg-input-evdev
sudo apt remove xserver-xorg-input-libinput
However, a quick restart showed that my trackpad no longer worked. Recommendations from the Linux Mint Forums pointed to installing another xorg input package, which brought the trackpad back.
sudo apt install xserver-xorg-input-synaptics
With all of this wrangled, xinput_calibrator --list now shows my display tablet, and xinput_calibrator --device 10 applies the calibration immediately after running.
Other issues at the moment:
The ElementaryOS settings app closes when I try and set up screen mirroring between my laptop and the drawing tablet.The default pen config maps to the wrong display, so I have to cycleSUPER+Puntil the drawing tablet is the only display.- ElementaryOS (as of 19 May 2025) now defaults to mirroring at 1280x800. Correct aspect ratio for the tablet, but not at max resolution. I’ll take it.