VM vs real hardware

I use a program called Stitchmastery, a graphics program written in Eclipse. I also use an old Wacom Bamboo Fun tablet. Things were falling apart (F42 with a long history of upgrades from f24). I installed VM and tested both F42 and F43. The program ran fine, the tablet worked as it should. Everything looked like a good match.

Installation has been less than wonderful - but the system is up and running.

The Wacom tablet/stylus does not work in Stitchmastery. I’m left wondering what the difference is between the “ideal” VM and my real hardware.

System uses 4 Xeon E3-1225 processors, 16GiB RAM, Nvidia GeForce GTX 950

The problem is: stylus works in everything until I try to enter data in Stitchmastery. I can select color or pattern from the menu but nothing writes to the diagram. The mouse works.

I’ve now tried this under both Plasma and Gnome desktops. Both exhibit the same problem. The old installation still had a Gnome with Xorg desktop which allowed the program to work. I’m open to suggestions.

https://developer-support.wacom.com/hc/en-us/articles/12845584068247-Wayland has a general discussion of Wayland support, and issues that result in some combinations of Wacom tablets and applications not working.

okay - but why does it work in the VM but not the “real” hardware?

As I said - the tablet worked perfectly in the VM. I downloaded Stitchmastery to the VM to test. I was fine. I installed on real hardware - it no longer works.

How did you install the F43 that you want the tablet to work in?

How did you install the VM that the tablet does work in?

Try running

sudo dnf install libwacom

You need to look at details: Xorg vs Wayland, is there support for the Wayland Tablet Protocol, differences in drivers. You can start by comparing the output from running inxi --usb with the Wacom tablet connected, and searching the journal for relevant messages.

ran the infix command - it sees the tablet with pen

The journal also shows the tablet, model is correct with pen

the tablet works in everything except when I’m trying to add information into Stitchmastery. It’s like using a virtual keyboard in a spreadsheet to select characters - everything works except the numbers don’t appear in the selected cells.

I’ve been fighting with the F43 installers - finally went to the “Everything” site to get an image for the hardware- the VM installed fine from the standard images.

VM: Started with Workstation 43 download. That gave me Gnome in a VM. Didn’t have enough space to download any apps, so built both KDE and Gnome VMs using the workstation downloads. Didn’t do anything to get Wacom running - it’s part of the kernel. Everything worked fine including Stitchmastery.

I tried using the standard images to install to hardware - both Gnome & Plasma images wanted me to “authenticate” before continuing but the input window flashes past before anything could be entered, the white installation screen opens and crashes all within a few seconds.

Hardware: Began with Kde/Plasma. Had to go to Everything site to get image that would install. Same with Gnome. Wacom is part of the kernel - nothing to do there, Wacom tablet works fine in everything except Stitchmastery.

Running sudo def install libwacom returns “already installed, nothing to do"

Addendum:
The VM installs were done by downloading the .iso to hard rive and installed from there
The physical hardware was installed by creating (Fedora Media Writer) a USB stick from the downloaded images

Based on your description, it sounds like the stylus input is not being passed correctly to Stitchmastery under Wayland native mode.

Java does not officially support Wayland native even in JDK 25 — only XWayland is supported. Could you try launching Stitchmastery in XWayland mode on both the VM and real hardware, and let us know if the behavior differs?

env WAYLAND_DISPLAY= ./Stitchmastery

I’m not familiar with environments - where do I enter this command?

I tried the console & got “permission denied”

I tried adding it to the .ini file and the program crashed

Sorry, I should have been clearer.

Please open a terminal and run the following command:

find ~ -name Stitchmastery -type f 2>/dev/null

Then use the path shown in the output. For example, if the output is /home/user/path/to/Stitchmastery, run:

env WAYLAND_DISPLAY= /home/user/path/to/Stitchmastery

thank you. that worked.

Stitchmastery continues to accept the stylus input in the F43 Gnome workstation in VM without problem. It doesn’t seem to need this adustment.

Interesting side - when Stitchmastery came up on the hardware KDW/Plasma with the adjustment it didn’t see the stylus until after I’d clicked on the program display. Then it accepted the stylus input.

How do I get this to be a “permanent” fix?

How do you usually launch Stitchmastery? Do you have a .desktop file for it?

Yes, I have a desktop file

Could you share the contents of your .desktop file?

It’s basic - it has the name of the program, a path to the executable, and a path for files

in the directory with the executable is a .ini file that opens some plugins for Eclipse

Please edit your .desktop file and add env WAYLAND_DISPLAY= before the path to the executable in the Exec= line.

it returns an error saying it can’t fine a program called “env WAYLAND_DISPLAY=” path

I tried moving it to the line for “env” and something flashed across the screen

Sorry, my mistake.

Please try this:

Exec=/usr/bin/sh -c "env WAYLAND_DISPLAY= /path/to/Stitchmastery"

something flashed by on the screen…