Ubuntu – How to change pen movement speed on wacom tablet

wacom

I tried to install the wacom tablet linux project thing, but when I did ./configure; make; make-install; it said there's no make file or something. I just need a way to change my pen movement speed. Thanks 🙂

Best Answer

Solution #1

I'd suggest you check first if your tablet supports the xsetwacom speed parameter. To do this enter the terminal command:

xsetwacom --list parameters

This will output a list of possible xsetwacom parameters to set. Look for one called Speed or SpeedLevel. To slow the cursor movement speed down, set this parameter to a fraction of 1 (it is recommended not to go to far to down to 0), and to speed it up set this to a multiplication of 1. So for example to half the movement speed you'd do:

xsetwacom set <device id> Speed 0.5

You can find the device id by executing xsetwacom --list devices. To have these changes set every time you boot, add that line to your .xinitrc file located in your home folder.

Solution #2 (worked for me, Intuos S)

If xsetwacom doesn't work, another, probably better way to do it is by using xinput. First detect the id's of your tablet again, by executing:

xinput list | grep Wacom

You should now see a couple of id's, the most important are stylus and eraser. Then, find the attributes that set the constant deceleration, by executing this for as many device id's as you have (to exit press Ctrl+C):

xinput watch-props <device id>

You should see something like this in there:

Device Accel Constant Deceleration (284):   1.000000

The attribute's id is that number (in this case 284) at the end of the name. Now in order to slow down the tablet movement, increase this number by executing:

xinput set-prop <device id> <attribute id> <deceleration factor>

An example:

xinput set-prop 13 284 2.5 && xinput set-prop 15 284 2.5

In this case, my stylus movement was device id 13 and my eraser id 15 so I set them both to 2.5, which as far as I could tell about halved the movement speed.

Again, these settings aren't saved at shutdown, so the best way is to have these settings be applied every time you boot. There are many ways to accomplish this, but an exapmle would be adding this command to you .xinitrc in your home folder. If this doesn't work, look for another way to have a command executed at boot on the internet.

Sources and credits:

EDIT #1: Added 2nd solution which worked better for myself.

EDIT #2: Grammar and sources

Related Question