I've migrated from Windows 11 to Zorin about two months ago (first real Linux distro I've daily driven so I'm fairly new to Linux) and in that time I've been trying to get the stylus to work in fullscreen windows since I installed it. I love the OS but this is really driving me up the wall. I've tried nearly every solution to this problem I can find online on Ubuntu / GNOME forums, even some posts on here too. Even so, nothing seems to fix it.
The problem is that when I try to use the pen in a full screen window, it works for one tap/stroke and then refuses to register even the pen's positioning until I hover over the dock. This is a problem that exclusively occurs in full screened applications such as Rnote, Firefox, etc.
Switching the BIOS from MPP to USI and back to MPP again seemed to fix the issue, but only temporarily as when I retabbed the application, the problem resumed. I cannot find any meaningful support about this issue because online all I can find are links to other forums/posts that either offer no (relevant) help at all or just lead me in this cycle of various forum posts and it's frustrating. It might be the pen, but I highly doubt it as it works perfectly fine when the window is not full screen.
If anyone can offer me any help that would be greatly appreciated!
I've found no solutions for this problem here in the forum. I read that it is solved in gnome 46.5, but this gnome version is not available in Zorin 18.
Maybe you want to try a bootstick with a distribution that offers a later gnome version than Zorin to test if it works then, e.g. ubuntu 25.04.
Many users report this problem:
As it sounds as if it is a gnome and mutter problem, you could also try Zorin lite 17 (18 has not been released yet) or install xfce4 desktop on your system to test.
sudo apt install xfce4
At loginscreen you can switch with the cogwheel between both desktops.
But because Wayland/Gnome is often better for touchscreens, I'm not sure if it worth to try XFCE desktop which uses Xorg.
Does Your System run in Wayland or X11? You can check that with the Terminal Command echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE
When it should run in Wayland, You could try it with switching to X11/Xorg. To do that, go to the Login Screen. Click there on Your Profile so that the Password Field appears. When it is appeared, You should see a Gear Icon in the bottom right Corner. Click on it and choose the Option ''Zorin Desktop on Xorg'' and then log in.
I've been using Wayland and I tried Xorg but the problem is that it's pretty buggy. It randomly decides to throw up a giant on-screen keyboard even when the laptop is upright. According to Forpli, it just seems like a waiting game until Zorin updates to GNOME >46.5
XFCE isn't in the cards for me. I guess I'll wait till the Zorin team releases Core 19.
Alternatively, You could try Debian 13 Gnome. It comes with Gnome 48. But it doesn't have the customization that zorin offers. You would have to set up that by Yourself.