Lock Graphic Tablet to one screen on Linux

I use an economic Huion H420 graphic tablet without screen, on my Linux Mint laptop, but normally I use two screen. Up to now I use very often a display for the call application and other display for others: for example a board in wich all call partecipant can explain yourself by drawing.

Huion H420

The problem

My graphic tablet is too small (7’’) and I have a very old 4:3 screen so the surface for drawing is not optimized. So I prefer to lock my tablet to one screen.

Get informations about monitors (outputs)

At first we should know what monito we have and select the monitor in wich we want lock the graphic tablet.

$ xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 8 x 8, current 2646 x 1024, maximum 32767 x 32767
LVDS1 connected primary 1366x768+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 309mm x 174mm
   1366x768      59.99*+  40.00  
   1360x768      59.80    59.96  
   1280x720      60.00  
   1024x768      85.00    75.03    70.07    60.00  
   1024x768i     86.96  
   1024x576      60.00  
   832x624       74.55  
   960x540       60.00  
   800x600       85.14    72.19    75.00    60.32    56.25  
   864x486       60.00  
   640x480       85.01    72.81    75.00    59.94  
   720x405       60.00  
   720x400       85.04  
   680x384       60.00  
   640x400       85.08  
   632x395      108.01  
   640x360       60.00  
   640x350       85.08  
   504x378       80.97  
   248x155      113.26  
DP1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DP2 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DP3 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI1 connected 1280x1024+1366+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 338mm x 270mm
   1280x1024     60.02*+  75.02  
   1152x864      75.00  
   1024x768      75.03    60.00  
   800x600       75.00    60.32  
   640x480       75.00    59.94  
   720x400       70.08  
HDMI2 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI3 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
VGA1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
VIRTUAL1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

I want select the screen of my laptop not the external “HDMI1”. So I select the laptop screen with name “LVDS1”.

Get information about graphic tablet (inputs)

After we can know the name of all our input preriferics in order to select wich we want to lock at the selected screen.

$ xinput
⎡ Virtual core pointer                     id=2 [master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer               id=4 [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ AlpsPS/2 ALPS GlidePoint                 id=12 [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ HUION H420 Consumer Control              id=14 [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ HUION H420 Pen                           id=17 [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ HUION H420 Mouse                         id=18 [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                    id=3 [master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard              id=5 [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                             id=6 [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Video Bus                                id=7 [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                             id=8 [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Sleep Button                             id=9 [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Dell WMI hotkeys                         id=10 [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard             id=11 [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ HUION H420 Keyboard                      id=13 [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ HUION H420 System Control                id=15 [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ HUION H420 Pad                           id=16 [slave  keyboard (3)]

I select my graphic tablet: “HUION H420 Pen”.

Lock it at the screen

At the end we select “LVDS1” screen and “HUION H420 Pen” using the command:

$ xinput map-to-output "HUION H420 Pen" "LVDS1"

After this command my graphic tablet start to work only inside my laptop display. But obviously if we plug out and plugin it again this effect end. If we want that this is the default we can scedule some script that detect when our graphing tablet is pluged in and execute this command.

Conclusions

In this situation I need to use only one screen because my graphic tablet is not enought large. But in general I think that with two screen with same ration and a bigest graphic tablet I do not need It as in my situation.

Drawing during explanation is a very good manner to explain our ideas in a more explanable way so all of us should have a graphics tablet.