I have a 2nd generation XP Pen Artist 13. It’s a great tablet and I’ve managed to make it work with my Steam Deck too.

But…

It’s basically an external monitor with pressure sensitive surface, so still less portable than an actual stand alone table. So I’m wondering if there is a tablet with a pressure sensitive screen and battery free pen that either comes with Linux or can install Linux on.

The programs I use for making art are Krita, Gimp, and Blender 3D.

  • farmer_bobathan@lemmy.ml
    24·
    6 months ago

    I’ve used Linux on various used Surface devices and it’s worked pretty well. You can see what’s working and what’s not here.

      • pixeled@lemmy.world
        3·
        6 months ago

        I’m using a second hand Surface 6 Pro (bought for €300 or so incl. keyboard cover), now running Arch (with linux-surface kernel) with KDE.

        Everything works great! :) Doubles as a handy little vacation laptop too, and makes me want a touchscreen on my next laptop!

        Please feel free to ask ahead if you have any questions about experiences or whatnot.

      • Fonderthud@lemm.ee
        2·
        6 months ago

        I have a second hand surface still running windows that I draw on. With a paper like screen protector I find it quite pleasant. Mines a 6 I think, runs Krita great I imagine it’d be even better if I ditched windows bloat.

  • SolidGrue@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    6 months ago

    I happen to have LMDE installed on a Lenovo Thinkpad Carbon X1 (Gen 3) tablet. It has a stylus that takes a AAAA (yes, quad-A) battery. Its an i5 or i7 Intel processor, and has a 3k Wacom sensor display. I’ve played with Inkscape on it and I think it fits the bill nicely, but it’s also discontinued.

    Cinnamon was the only DE with DPI scaling that worked worth a damn, and also had good native support for screen autorotation and onscreen keyboard.

    I need to completely wipe and reinstall the system now because I configured my slices too small, and for some reason decided not to put root in an LVM like a sane person would have (it was 2017 tho. Different times…)

    Anyhoo, if you can come by one through the refurb market, I think it comes closest to your spec, saving the no-battery stylus.

      • just_another_person@lemmy.world
        1·
        6 months ago

        I don’t think you’re going to find much cheaper for a full fledged tablet format machine with a high res capacitive touchscreen @165hz that will render what you’re asking for. This is the exact package you’re looking for though. Maybe wait for a sale.

        • Tattorack@lemmy.worldOP
          2·
          6 months ago

          Pretty sure my XP Pen’s refresh rate isn’t 165hz, and I find it perfectly fine to work on, so I don’t need something with such a high refresh rate.

          At about 13 inches the resolution of the screen doesn’t need to be more than 1080p either.

  • Jocker@sh.itjust.works
    21·
    6 months ago

    Somebody make a linux-pad with the new snapdragon chip, pencil, keyboard dock and display out

  • psycho_driver@lemmy.world
    1·
    6 months ago

    I bought an xp-pen pro (15 inchish) for my daughter xmas before last and she uses it almost every day on her steamdeck desktop.

    Edit: Derp. I read your comment after posting based on the thread title. So I guess this is a +1 for xp-pen pro if any future reader is looking for an attached drawing tablet for linux.

    • Tattorack@lemmy.worldOP
      2·
      6 months ago

      Yeah, XP Pen offers native Linux drivers, and the guys from Open Tablet Driver have also made their driver work with older XP Pen models, so it’s a pretty great wired tablet for Linux users.

      But… Uh… Yeah… I’m looking for a standalone, because travelling with my XP Pen 13 and needing to play dongle-fu with Steam Deck is very awkward.

  • utopiah@lemmy.ml
    1·
    6 months ago

    PineTab 2 works but no WiFi or Bluetooth driver for now. Possible to add a USB dongle or USB-C to Ethernet to install missing apps though then work. Also not super powerful so even though I bet Blender3D works, doubt it’d be pleasant for heavy scenes.

    • Tattorack@lemmy.worldOP
      2·
      6 months ago

      Hmmm… The PineTab looks incredibly experimental still. It’s a option, but I’ll wait and see how the development of this one is going.

      • TCB13@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        6 months ago

        A suggestion for you: Microsoft and Qualcomm are working on ARM based laptops with impressive numbers right now. I believe in a year after those are released you’ll see tablets using the same CPUs that will be way better to run Linux than the garbage we’ve available today.

        The issue with most ARM / Android tablets right now is that besides having locked bootloaders (so much bitching about Apple and then they do the same) they don’t have an UEFI and that means the OS needs to be responsible for the low level shenanigans of booting the systems, initializing the hardware etc. making it so you’ve to create a tweaked kernel for each device. It isn’t feasible to support so much hardware thus there’s little to no Linux support on those devices.

        Whatever is coming from Qualcomm right now will feature an UEFI and will be a more open platform like a generic x86 computer and we’ll get Linux support really fast.

      • utopiah@lemmy.ml
        1·
        6 months ago

        It is, if you are not ready to tinker I do not recommend it.

        Yet, it works as-is, assuming you don’t need to work wirelessly. I use it on a nearly daily basis and it’s stable.

        • Tattorack@lemmy.worldOP
          2·
          6 months ago

          Hmm, for drawing when travelling I wouldn’t be streaming or hanging out on discord, so being constantly connected to the Internet would not be a priority, just that it’s good for drawing without a mess of dongles and cables.

          Not being able to upload a WIP or a completed commission to a customer might be annoying, though…

          • utopiah@lemmy.ml
            1·
            6 months ago

            See other comments, apparently WiFi is working now (I’m updating right now so can’t confirm) and I forgot but for drawing it’s just a touch screen, so it doesn’t support “fancy” pens with e.g pressure iirc.

    • TCB13@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      6 months ago

      PineTab 2 works but no WiFi or Bluetooth driver for now

      Are you sure those drivers will come at any point? I’m not.