Arch Linux

Hompez

Member

Registered: 2023-08-02

Posts: 5

Microsoft Surface book 2 cannot press or click with the Surface Pen

Thanks for noticing this post!

I've followed Archlinux Tablet PC wiki to setup a tablet PC on Microsoft Surface book 2.

The cursor moves perfectly when the Surface Pen is closed to the screen.
But when the pen touches the screen, it cannot click or write anything, only the cursor moves with the pen. ( Left Click or Left press down won't work )
And the right click button on stylus works weirdly. Sometimes it works as right click, but sometimes it works as "Paste" or "Open the menu".

Here's some detailed information :

Distro : Archlinux
WM: i3wm
Stylus: Surface Pen with no clip

package:  xf86-input-wacom

And, it is not the problem with battery, because I've changed a new AAAA battery and it still won't work.

Thank you!

d_fajardo

Member

Registered: 2017-07-28

Posts: 1,687

Re: Microsoft Surface book 2 cannot press or click with the Surface Pen

Does udev register any event on those clicks? If it does perhaps you can just create a script to trigger the behaviour that you want and create a udev rule to map the event to your script. This is purely speculatively however.
I have done something similar successfully with a proper wacom stylus pen but I'm not sure if it will work on your device,

Hompez

Member

Registered: 2023-08-02

Posts: 5

Re: Microsoft Surface book 2 cannot press or click with the Surface Pen

Does udev register any event on those clicks? If it does perhaps you can just create a script to trigger the behaviour that you want and create a udev rule to map the event to your script. This is purely speculatively however.
I have done something similar successfully with a proper wacom stylus pen but I'm not sure if it will work on your device,

Thanks for the reply! But I think it may because my stylus has not been recognized by the system.

The "xsetwacom list devices" shows nothing.

The return messages of "dmesg" are as follows:

[ 2191.416046] input: Surface Pen Keyboard as /devices/virtual/misc/uhid/0005:045E:0921.0009/input/input48
[ 2191.416312] input: Surface Pen as /devices/virtual/misc/uhid/0005:045E:0921.0009/input/input49
[ 2191.416755] hid-generic 0005:045E:0921.0009: input,hidraw2: BLUETOOTH HID v0.2e Keyboard [Surface Pen] on c4:9d:ed:1b:8d:8b

The return messages of "cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log | grep Stylus" shows as follows:

[    23.124] (II) libinput: IPTS Stylus: needs a virtual subdevice
[    23.125] (**) IPTS Stylus Pen (0): Applying InputClass "libinput tablet catchall"
[    23.125] (II) Using input driver 'libinput' for 'IPTS Stylus Pen (0)'
[    23.125] (**) IPTS Stylus Pen (0): always reports core events
[    23.125] (II) libinput: IPTS Stylus Pen (0): is a virtual subdevice
[    23.125] (II) XINPUT: Adding extended input device "IPTS Stylus Pen (0)" (type: STYLUS, id 16)
[    23.125] (**) IPTS Stylus Pen (0): (accel) selected scheme none/0
[    23.125] (**) IPTS Stylus Pen (0): (accel) acceleration factor: 2.000
[    23.125] (**) IPTS Stylus Pen (0): (accel) acceleration threshold: 4

I don't quite understand what should be the problem. Please give me some advises if you like.

d_fajardo

Member

Registered: 2017-07-28

Posts: 1,687

Re: Microsoft Surface book 2 cannot press or click with the Surface Pen

The pen seems to work as a cursor so there's something there. xsetwacom is not recognizing it so perhaps the wacom driver doesn't recognize it but libinput seems to detect it. Perhaps explore the device with libinput and udev.

Hompez

Member

Registered: 2023-08-02

Posts: 5

Re: Microsoft Surface book 2 cannot press or click with the Surface Pen

The pen seems to work as a cursor so there's something there. xsetwacom is not recognizing it so perhaps the wacom driver doesn't recognize it but libinput seems to detect it. Perhaps explore the device with libinput and udev.

Thanks for the advise! I'll try that!