Using Graphic/Drawing Tablet on Qubes OS

[gladio]

Hello everyone,
I’m trying to use my graphic tablet with on Qubes R4.2.2 for a while and tried almost every method that written in Qubes Forum but still have some problems with it. There is two ways to use drawing tablet on Qubes OS with some trade-offs:

1. Connecting graphic tablet directly to dom0

   • Advantages:
     • You can see where you draw through the general system cursor of dom0
   • Disadvantages:
     • You can’t use the buttons of graphic tablet, because you shouldn’t run the
       graphic tablet app image on dom0
     • Some potential security issues that could arise from the direct connection of
       graphic tablet to dom0
     • Decreased drawing quality due to abrupt drawing from dom0

2. Connecting graphic tablet to App VM

   • Advantages:
     • Normal / High quality drawing
     • Recognizes pen pressure
     • Can use tablet buttons
     • Can use all functionality of graphic tablet
   • Disadvantages:
     • Can’t see the cursor. (Actually that disadvantage is enough on its own, because
       you can’t draw anything if you don’t see where you are
       drawing)

So, besides asking the solution of that problem, I can suggest some potential solutions that I couldn’t figure out how to apply:

• dom0 can recognize graphic tablet read only and can just show the cursor and
  App VM can recognize it as write and execute, so that all functionalities can be
  used.
• Mouse cursor layers could be implemented on Qubes OS, so that you can select
  the graphic tablet cursor to be used on App VM and dom0 cursor for all other
  qubes and for system general

[Mirai]

Yeah I also would really like to get this implemented, somehow I am currently making it work by directly connecting it to the VM.

I just remembered that it will probably work without much trouble if you create a qube with a normal linux ISO (Just like a windows VM) you will just need to add some qubes packages manually (qubes file transfer etc…) if needed.

Don’t forget that you have to configure networking manually. (Wait maybe there is some qubes package that you could install for that?)

[apparatus]

You can just remove the qubes-gui-agent from the template instead of installing OS from ISO and installing agents there:

Full desktop of a standalone ? Seemingly no option

Open your StandaloneVM testqube console from dom0 terminal: qvm-console-dispvm testqube Run this command in testqube console: sudo apt remove --purge qubes-gui-agent sudo systemctl set-default graphical.target Then enable debug mode for this testqube using GUI Settings → Advanced tab → “Run in debug mode” or using dom0 terminal qvm-prefs testqube debug True. And also change Virtualization mode using GUI Settings → Advanced tab → Virtualization to HVM mode or using dom0 terminal qvm-prefs t…

[apparatus]

You can try this:

Why does seamless GPU acceleration only work when using template based HVMs?

I’ve tested it some more and I’ve found the problem that you’ve encountered, it was Xorg. Using Wayland don’t have this performance drop. Here is an example with sway, but it should work for KDE/GNOME/etc with Wayland if you prefer it: Install sway in the template (e.g. sudo apt install sway for debian). In the gaming app qube based on this template create the custom sway config: mkdir -p ~/.config/sway cp /etc/sway/config ~/.config/sway/ nano ~/.config/sway/config echo "seat * pointer_const…

Running e.g. sway with WLR_NO_HARDWARE_CURSORS=1 will show the full sway desktop with mouse cursor visible and you can run your app inside sway in fullscreen.