Pressure sensitivity broken on Ubuntu Precise

[Martin Owens]

A user asked me to test precise for tablet functionality since Oneric was a wipeout for artists. It looks like it's fixed in gimp and the data in inkscape's tablet tools looks good... but inkscape doesn't seem to be using it.

Did someone switch it off?

[su_v (suv-lp)]

Which Inkscape version?

What does this report differ from Bug #790130 "no pressure sensitivity with wacom tablet in inkscape"?
<https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/790130>

[su_v (suv-lp)]

s/What/How/

[su_v (suv-lp)]

> Did someone switch it off?

Not in Inkscape itself - pressure sensitivity works ok with stable and trunk on some other platforms. Issues on Ubuntu (apparently since Natty) have been reported (bug #790130), but not addressed yet.

[ScislaC (scislac)]

I have the same problem here on 0.48.3.1 in Precise repos and current trunk self-compiled.

~suv: One issue is that it hasn't been completely messed up since Natty, during the Oneiric dev cycle at one point I seem to recall it worked.

[su_v (suv-lp)]

@ScislaC - I still don't see how this is a different issue than already tracked in bug #790130 (which does include comments confirming the problem on Oneiric), but I'll have to trust you on that one if you think these are two unrelated bugs, in Inkscape itself.

[ScislaC (scislac)]

~suv: I'll be honest, it could very well be the same bug. However, at various points over the past couple releases I've seen it work... which is why I am not fully confident saying it's the same issue. I'll email Jon and offer to work with him on it. Either way, it's definitely an Inkscape issue since MyPaint & GIMP are fine in the same environment.

[Martin Owens (doctormo)]

Yes I can confirm that Gimp on Oneiric has issues, but those issues were corruptions, something to do with a change in the Gnome API. But testing on precise shows those issues to have been cleared up in Gnome and I think we're just waiting for inkscape to be fixed now.

[roothorick (8-roothorick-gmail-com)]

WORKAROUND GET

Posted this in Bug 790130 but it's probably more relevant here.

I changed the palette to the Echo Icon Theme Palette and that didn't fix anything. But I noticed that that palette doesn't produce a scrollbar, and a lightbulb went on in my head. So after a little googling, I:

# sudo apt-get remove liboverlay-scrollbar-0.2

And now Inkscape (along with everything else) has plain-jane GTK scrollbars, but pressure sensitivity works!

[su_v (suv-lp)]

@ScislaC - can you confirm the workaround / underlying trigger for the tablet regression (no pressure sensitivity) on Ubuntu described by Ben?

ScislaC wrote on 2012-03-06:
> One issue is that it hasn't been completely messed
> up since Natty, during the Oneiric dev cycle at one
> point I seem to recall it worked.

Could it be possible that at that one point mentioned, you had the overlay-scrollbar disabled temporarily for your desktop?

[ScislaC (scislac)]

I can indeed confirm overlay-scrollbar as the culprit. With it installed, no pressure sensitivity. After uninstalling and restarting Inkscape, pressure sensitivity worked. After reinstalling and restarting inkscape, no pressure sensitivity.