4 Most Affordable Drawing Tablets for Linux Users
Do you enjoy drawing on your Linux PC? Are you on the lookout for an affordable drawing tablet that will work with your current setup but have no idea what to get? If so, check out our list of 4 affordable drawing tablets that have good Linux support!
1. Wacom CTL4100 Intuos
Need a good drawing tablet to use on Linux? Check out the Wacom Intuos. When it comes to drawing tablets and Linux support, no company does it better than Wacom. Most devices they manufacture are supported on Linux within the kernel and will work with your favorite Linux drawing apps like Krita, MyPaint, and more.
In terms of features, the Wacom Intuos has a battery-free pen with 4096 pressure levels, 2540 LPI, 4 customizable buttons to add your most-used shortcuts, and a decently sized drawing area to work with (6.0 inches x 3.7 inches).
The Wacom Intuos is a great budget device for Linux and has first-class support by the Linux community. Best of all, many Linux desktop environments (Gnome Shell and others) include a Wacom drawing tablet configuration tool so that users can configure and customize their hardware without needing to install third-party software.
Notable features
- Support for the Wacom CTL4100 Intuos is in the Linux kernel, and users do not need to fuss with third-party software drivers to use the tablet.
- Compact 6.0 inches x 3.7 inches drawing space makes it very portable.
- 4 programmable buttons that can be configured comfortably in many Linux desktop environments.
- The tablet has 2540 lines per inch.
- Tablet has a paper-like feel for comfort.
Cost
For a Wacom tablet, the Intuos is very affordable, but not the cheapest option on the market. That said, unlike a lot of Wacom’s tablets, it doesn’t cost hundreds of dollars. You won’t need to spend an arm and a leg to get your hands on this Linux-compatible device, and that’s great!
2. Huion Inspiroy H640P
Huion Inspiroy H640P is an interesting drawing tablet that not only works with your Linux PC but also allows users to connect their Android device to it for drawing purposes. How cool is that?
Aside from the neat Android feature, Huion Inspiroy H640P has other useful features too, such as 6 programmable buttons, a battery-free pen stylus with 8192 levels of pressure, and 6.3×3.9-inch drawing space.
Huion Inspiroy H640P is compatible with Linux thanks to the DIGImend, which dedicates it’s efforts to creating drivers for many popular drawing tablets. However, the tablet can also work on most Linux operating systems without installing the driver.
Notable features
- The drawing tablet has an Android mode, and when plugged into any Android device with an OTG (AKA on the go) adapter, it can be used to create artwork just like on a PC.
- The battery-free pen stylus supports pressure levels of up to 8192.
- The compact 6.3×3.9-inch design makes the drawing tablet ultra-portable.
Cost
The fact that a drawing tablet can support both mobile phones and all major PC operating systems while still managing to be so affordable is impressive. If you’re in need of a good tablet that works on both phone and Linux PCs, check the Huion Inspiroy H640P out!
3. Monoprice 110594
Need a Linux-compatible drawing tablet packed with features? Try out the Monoprice 110594. It’s a 10x 6.25-inch graphic drawing tablet. It has 4000 lines per inch, 200 RPS report rate, and 2048 levels of pressure sensitivity.
Feature-wise, the Monoprice 110594 has assignable keys that users can use to assign specific shortcuts and even custom actions such as checking email, brushes, you name it. The device works with Linux without the need to install drivers. However, users may find better support with the device by installing the open-source DIGImend tablet driver.
Using the Monoprice 110594 drawing tablet on Linux isn’t an issue, and the user should be able to take advantage of the many programmable buttons without any problems. However, the DIGImend tablet driver may need to be installed to do that.
Notable features
- Assignable keys users can program for various things, such as shortcuts, brushes, etc.
- Dedicated zoom in/out buttons on the tablet makes it easy to zoom in and out of the artwork.
- Large 10×6.25-inch size gives the user a lot of drawing space.
Cost
As far as drawing tablets go, the Monoprice 110594 is very affordable and is a great pickup for any artist on a limited budget. However, if the cost is still too much, Monoprice makes a smaller tablet at a lower price!
4. UGEE M708
UGEE M708 is another excellent budget drawing tablet with decent Linux support thanks to the hard work of the DIGImend project. Much like the Monoprice 110594, users have 8 programmable shortcut buttons users can program.
The UGEE M708 has a drawing space of 10×6-inches. The surface of the tablet is “papery,” and comes with a battery-free pen with 8192 pressure sensitivity levels. It has an LPI of 5080 and 266 RPS.
Users will be able to plug in the UGEE M708 and use it without needing to install drivers, thanks to the Linux kernel. However, the DIGImend project directly supports the device and provides drivers that Linux users can download and install should they need it.
Notable features
- Supports a very high pressure sensitivity level of almost 10,000.
- 8 programmable buttons that the user can use to set shortcuts, brushes, and other custom actions.
- Very large drawing space for the artist to work with.
Cost
As the manufacturer of UGEE M708 is not directly selling it, the cost can vary. However, the price usually stays affordable and is still great to pick up, especially if you love what it has to offer.
Linux Drawing Tablet Problem: Drivers
The drawing tablets on this list should work out of the box on Linux in most cases. However, if you find that you need to install drivers to get your device working, do check out DIGImend. They do a good job providing Linux drivers and instructions for a wide variety of drawing tablets.
Conclusion
In this list, we covered 4 excellent budget drawing tablets that have good Linux support, though there are plenty more great drawing tablets that work on the Linux platform. What drawing tablet do you use on your Linux system? Sound off in the comment section!
I own a XPPen ( https://www.xp-pen.com ) Drawing Tablet, and there are drivers available for Debian, Arch and RHL (based) distributions.
Not sure it’s most affordable overall, but very affordable with a screen is XP-Pen Artist 15.6 Pro. I’ve had one a couple of years and liked the hardware but driver support was in beta. Sure I was glad they actually had a linux driver, but compared to the windows driver it was primitive enough to send me to digimend, a hack that sort of tricked the computer into thinking it was a wacom and then I could edit config files by hand, plus that broke after a kernel update. However, the newest driver is slick, supports tilt functionality (which the beta didn’t), and the device has 8 programmable buttons and a dial. Now that dial is useful, and one of the buttons can be set to cycle between 4 functions, for instance zooming, choosing a brush, or rotating the canvas, and I heard an animator say he uses it to move back and forth through his timeline frame by frame. Like I said, mine is 2 years old, but with the new driver, it feels new. Only downside is that it pops open every login, but KDE allows you to set rules for individual windows (in this case title equals “Pentablet” and the rules are Minimize – Apply Initially – and Skip Taskbar – Force – so it’s hidden but I can still find it with the Alt-Tab task switcher). That’s a hoop to jump through, but I only had to do it once. Not on the payroll, but I’m a fan, even though I can’t draw well. I bought the thing for calligraphy (why I need tilt), and its way cheaper than pen and ink supplies over the long term. List price is $400, Amazon usually has an automatic coupon, and on the XP-Pen site there’s been a Christmas special for $300 three years in a row (with a holiday-themed box). Besides the usual drawing apps look at xournal++ (hand-writing notebook) and cellwriter (convert your handwriting to text entry which you can then paste).
My question is if the Wacom CTL-6100WLE0 can be used with XUbuntu without additional drivers. You recommended a smaller model, but I am interested in a larger area of work.
Best regards,
F. Miraglia
I would guess that it may have support without additional drivers as Wacom is the most well-known, and drivers are added all the time. That said, if it doesn’t work, there’s a really nice GUI driver tool that can get your device working. https://github.com/KDE/wacomtablet
I bought the Ugee M708-2. Plug it to my KDE-neon Plasma 5.20 Kernel 5.4 and it working perfectly without installing any driver.
Great testament, I was just looking at that model hoping it works OTB like it says.
Try the XP-PEN Deco 01 V2 drawing tablet. It’s 10 by 6.25, comes with 8 customizable hot keys, nice and slim design, and plus it’s something you can afford! It has mostly positive reviews. you can download the linux driver from xp-pen official site.
For the record, the number 2 on the list (Huion Inspiroy H640P) does *not* work out of the box on Linux.
You need to install two sets of drivers (xinput-evdev and digimend), the latter needs to be compiled from source and will not install on the version of the linux kernel currently provided by ubuntu (so you need to upgrade the kernel manually too). And on top of that you will need to edit xorg files by hand to modify some settings.