Tablets need to be known to GNOME to initialize the right capabilities.
Peter Hutterer
peter.hutterer@redhat.com
Luc Pionchon
pionchon.luc@gmail.com 2011
Claude Paroz
claude@2xlibre.net 2011
Alain Lojewski
allomervan@gmail.com 2011-2015
Julien Hardelin
jhardlin@orange.fr 2011, 2013
Bruno Brouard
annoa.b@gmail.com 2011-12
yanngnome
yannubuntu@gmail.com 2012
Nicolas Delvaux
contact@nicolas-delvaux.org 2012
Mickael Albertus
mickael.albertus@gmail.com 2012
Alexandre Franke
alexandre.franke@gmail.com 2015
Hydroxyp
hydroxyp@gmail.com 2020
Charles Monzat
charles.monzat@free.fr 2020-2022
Guillaume Bernard
associations@guillaume-bernard.fr 2021
Irénée Thirion
irenee.thirion@e.email 2024

# Why is my tablet unknown?

For GNOME to initialize a tablet with the correct capabilities such as pressure, tilt, mapable buttons, etc. it needs to first know which capabilities are available. This information is not provided by the devices but resides in a static device database provided by the libwacom library. Devices must be individually added to this database and thus may not yet be available in the version of libwacom provided by your distribution.

If a tablet is not supported by libwacom, GNOME cannot know which capabilities are available. GNOME then defaults to assuming the tablet is built into one of the outputs (the built-in one if available) and it has no external buttons. The pen (stylus) tool defaults to a standard two-button tool. This usually has little effect on the functionality of the tablet but it does limit the configuration of the tablet.

For instructions on how to add a device please see the instructions in the libwacom repository.