GNOME 3 Tablet Configuration

GNOME 3

The GNOME 3 desktop has native support for configuring Wacom tablets. The GNOME Control Center provides the ability to adjust various settings:

• Monitor mapping
• Pressure curve
• Button / ExpressKey mapping
• Left-handed orientation

If you find that you need to access these settings manually, please continue on.

Conflicts With Xsetwacom

While the GNOME desktop offers convenient configuration, it does tend to conflict with the xsetwacom program if you want to apply more advanced settings. These conflicts are caused by how GNOME listens for tablet events and may not be easily worked around.

GNOME versions prior to 3.24 can have their integration completely disabled by using the following command. The integration can be re-enabled at a later time by changing the last parameter to true.

$ gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.gsdwacom active false

More recent versions use a different architecture that cannot be disabled.

Remove Existing Configuration

When switching the display server from Wayland to Xorg, only the display server changes. gsettings where gnome stores the configuration are kept around. If you configured something under Wayland and switch to Xorg, those settings would be there and vice versa. To do a full reset, the following steps need to be executed:

$ rm $HOME/.cache/gnome-control-center/wacom/* $ dconf reset -f / $ rm /run/user/$UID/dconf/user $HOME/.config/dconf/user

The former resets the memory in which tablets/stylus were seen before. The latter two lines remove all user-specific configuration settings, where rm command may be unnecessary. But, it doesn't hurt.

dconf database

GNOME stores settings in its dconf database which can be edited either with the gsettings CLI program or the dconf-editor GUI. The location of settings has varied over time:

• GNOME < 3.6

  • org.gnome.settings-daemon.peripherals.wacom:/org/gnome/settings-daemon/peripherals/wacom/usb:<VENDOR>-<PRODUCT>/
  • org.gnome.settings-daemon.peripherals.wacom.stylus:/org/gnome/settings-daemon/peripherals/wacom/usb:${VENDOR}-${PRODUCT}/${TOOLID}
  • org.gnome.settings-daemon.peripherals.wacom.eraser:/org/gnome/settings-daemon/peripherals/wacom/usb:${VENDOR}-${PRODUCT}/${TOOLID}
  • org.gnome.settings-daemon.peripherals.wacom.tablet-button:/org/gnome/settings-daemon/peripherals/wacom/usb:${VENDOR}-${PRODUCT}/${BUTTONID}

• GNOME <= 3.6 and < 3.16:

  • org.gnome.settings-daemon.peripherals.wacom:/org/gnome/settings-daemon/peripherals/wacom/${MACHINEID}-usb:<VENDOR>-<PRODUCT>
  • org.gnome.settings-daemon.peripherals.wacom.stylus:/org/gnome/settings-daemon/peripherals/wacom/${MACHINEID}-usb:${VENDOR}-${PRODUCT}/${TOOLID}
  • org.gnome.settings-daemon.peripherals.wacom.eraser:/org/gnome/settings-daemon/peripherals/wacom/${MACHINEID}-usb:${VENDOR}-${PRODUCT}/${TOOLID}
  • org.gnome.settings-daemon.peripherals.wacom.tablet-button:/org/gnome/settings-daemon/peripherals/wacom/${MACHINEID}-usb:${VENDOR}-${PRODUCT}/${BUTTONID}

• GNOME >= 3.16 and < 3.24:

  • org.gnome.settings-daemon.peripherals.wacom:/org/gnome/settings-daemon/peripherals/wacom/${MACHINEID}-usb:${VENDOR}-${PRODUCT}
  • org.gnome.settings-daemon.peripherals.wacom.stylus:/org/gnome/settings-daemon/peripherals/wacom/${MACHINEID}-usb:${VENDOR}-${PRODUCT}/${TOOLID}
  • org.gnome.settings-daemon.peripherals.wacom.eraser:/org/gnome/settings-daemon/peripherals/wacom/${MACHINEID}-usb:${VENDOR}-${PRODUCT}/${TOOLID}
  • org.gnome.settings-daemon.peripherals.wacom.tablet-button:/org/gnome/settings-daemon/peripherals/wacom/${MACHINEID}-usb:${VENDOR}-${PRODUCT}/${BUTTONID}
  • org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.tablet.display:/org/gnome/desktop/peripherals/tablet/${VENDOR}:${PRODUCT}

• GNOME >= 3.24

  • org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.tablet:/org/gnome/desktop/peripherals/tablets/${VENDOR}:${PRODUCT}
  • org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.stylus:/org/gnome/desktop/peripherals/stylus/default-${VENDOR}:${PRODUCT}
  • org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.stylus:/org/gnome/desktop/peripherals/stylus/${SERIAL}
  • org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.tablet.pad-button:/org/gnome/desktop/peripherals/tablets/${VENDOR}:${PRODUCT}/${TYPE}${LABEL}
  • org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.touchscreen:/org/gnome/desktop/peripherals/touchscreen/${VENDOR}:${PRODUCT}