Wacom Drivers – Fix Wacom Intuos CTL-4100 Not Working on Ubuntu 18.04

18.04driverswacom

I'm pretty much a newcomer in this site and in Ubuntu 18.04. Today I tried using my new Wacom Intuos Small (Model:CTL-4100) in the OS. Just after connecting it to my laptop, it seemed to work just fine. The problem came after noticing that the system did not recognize the pen tablet on the control center. After looking it up, I installed the input-wacom driver following the instructions on its GitHub page. However, after rebooting the system, the pen tablet stopped working at all. It still shows the led light when I connect it by USB, but it does not move the mouse pointer, and the buttons seem to do nothing either. I would like to know if there is a way to go back to the default system drivers for Wacom tablets.
I must add that I also installed libwacom and xf86-input-wacom drivers after the kernel driver, but the tablet still doesn't seem to work.

Best Answer

As you noted, on Ubuntu 18.04, the non-Bluetooth Intuos Small is supported at the kernel level without installing the "input-wacom" kernel driver. If you had the Bluetooth version you would need to install an updated input-wacom.

However, updating input-wacom should not cause the tablet to stop working. It is possible that something in your installation of one of the three drivers went wrong.

Nevertheless, to reduce your variables for troubleshooting, you may want to uninstall input-wacom. To return to the default kernel (input-wacom) drivers, you would normally issue the command:

 sudo make uninstall

in the same directory where you issued the command "sudo make install". A reboot or 

 modprobe -r wacom; sudo modprobe wacom

would be necessary to swap out the currently running driver.

Updating libwacom would be the step required to show the tablet in the Control Panel. An update to xf86-input-wacom would be unnecessary.

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