SMART Board Pen not supported

[Thomas Dähnrich]

Ubuntu 17.10 | xserver-xorg-input-libinput 0.25.0-0ubuntu1

I'm using Ubuntu 17.10 with a SMART Board 6000 (an interactive whiteboard) in school.
The touch-screen of the board works fine. Unfortunately there are a lot of problems with the pen:
- The pen isn't recognized as a device on Wayland. You can't either use it as a touch-device or write with it.
- The same problem occurs when xserver-xorg-input-libinput is used on X.Org.
After I replaced libinput with the old xserver-xorg-input-evdev/-synaptics the pen was recognized and I could use it. The output of xinput confirms this:

xinput [libinput installed]:
⎡ Virtual core pointer id=2 [master pointer (3)]
⎜ ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer id=4 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ SMART Technologies SMART IFP id=9 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ ETPS/2 Elantech Touchpad id=14 [slave pointer (2)]

xinput [evdev/synaptics installed]:
⎡ Virtual core pointer id=2 [master pointer (3)]
⎜ ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer id=4 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ SMART Technologies SMART IFP Pen id=9 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ SMART Technologies SMART IFP id=10 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ SMART Technologies SMART IFP UNKNOWN id=11 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ SMART Technologies SMART IFP UNKNOWN id=12 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ SMART Technologies SMART IFP UNKNOWN id=13 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ SMART Technologies SMART IFP UNKNOWN id=14 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ ETPS/2 Elantech Touchpad id=18 [slave pointer (2)]

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

probably needs some fix in udev/systemd, but you might first report it to libinput upstream on bugs.freedesktop.org

[Thomas Dähnrich (tdaehnrich)]

Thanks. I reported it on bugs.freedesktop.org, too.

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

great, please share the link here so that we can track it

[Thomas Dähnrich (tdaehnrich)]

Bug-report on Bugzilla:
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=104087

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

looks like the kernel would need to be fixed first

[Joseph Salisbury (jsalisbury)]

Would it be possible for you to test the latest upstream kernel? Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds . Please test the latest v4.15 kernel[0].

If this bug is fixed in the mainline kernel, please add the following tag 'kernel-fixed-upstream'.

If the mainline kernel does not fix this bug, please add the tag: 'kernel-bug-exists-upstream'.

Once testing of the upstream kernel is complete, please mark this bug as "Confirmed".

Thanks in advance.

[0] http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.15

[Thomas Dähnrich (tdaehnrich)]

I tested it with the latest 4.15 kernel - without success.