Adobe Flash CS6 on Linux — with Huion pen pressure

Run Adobe Flash Professional CS6 on Linux through Wine, with working pen pressure on a Huion tablet.

Everything needed is bundled, and one script does the whole job. You do not need to know Wine, and you do not need to install it yourself — the installer brings its own. The only command you ever type is ./install.sh.

Tested on Pop!_OS 24.04 / Ubuntu (noble) with a Huion display tablet.

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Table of contents

1. What you need
2. Install Flash — the simple way
3. Install with no internet (offline)
4. For maintainers — building the pack
5. How it works
6. The unique part — the XWinTab patches
7. What gets installed
8. Settings
9. If something is not right
10. Credits

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1. What you need

• A computer running Linux (Ubuntu, Pop!_OS, or a close relative).
• Your Flash CS6 installer — an .iso file, or the folder that contains Set-up.exe.
• Your amtlib.dll file.
• A Huion pen tablet, plugged in.
• Either an internet connection (for the normal install, one download), or the offline pack file flashcs6-pack.tar.gz (see section 3).

You do not need to install Wine yourself.

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2. Install Flash — the simple way

2.1 Get the project

Click the green Code button on the project's GitHub page, then Download ZIP. Unzip it. You now have a folder containing install.sh.

(If you know how to use git, you can instead run git clone <repository-url>.)

2.2 Put your two files into the local folder

Inside the project there is a folder named local. Using your normal file manager, drag your two files into it:

• your Flash installer (the .iso file, or the installer folder), and
• your amtlib.dll.

2.3 Open a terminal in the project folder

The terminal is a small window where you type commands.

• Many file managers have a right‑click option like "Open Terminal Here" — use it inside the project folder, or
• open your applications, search for "Terminal", then type cd (with a space) and drag the project folder onto the window, and press Enter.

Tip: to paste into a terminal, press Ctrl + Shift + V.

2.4 Run the installer

Type this and press Enter:

./install.sh

• If you see "Permission denied", type this once, then run it again:

  chmod +x install.sh
  ./install.sh
  

• The installer will ask for your password (to install software). Type it and press Enter. The password stays invisible while you type — that is normal, keep going.

The installer downloads everything it needs (Wine and the rest) the first time, and keeps it for next time.

2.5 Follow the on‑screen prompts

The installer does most things on its own, but it will pause and ask you to do a few things by hand. Read each message:

1. Turn off your internet when asked. The old Adobe setup tries to reach servers that no longer exist and will freeze otherwise.
2. A Windows‑style setup window opens. Click through it: choose the "Try" option, let it install, and do not open Flash at the end.
3. The installer shows you a copy‑paste command that puts your amtlib.dll in the right place. Copy it, paste it (Ctrl + Shift + V), press Enter.
4. The installer finishes everything else automatically.

When it is done, you can turn the internet back on.

2.6 Restart, then open Flash

Restart the computer once (this makes the tablet and pressure turn on automatically every time).

Then find Adobe Flash CS6 in your applications menu, under Graphics. Pick the Brush tool, turn on pressure, and draw — the line gets thicker when you press harder.

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3. Install with no internet (offline)

If the computer has no internet, you only need one extra file: the pack, flashcs6-pack.tar.gz (get it from the project's Releases page on GitHub, or copy it from a USB stick).

1. Put flashcs6-pack.tar.gz inside the project folder, right next to install.sh.
2. Run ./install.sh exactly as in section 2.

The installer notices the pack and unpacks it automatically — you never type an unzip command. Everything installs without any internet.

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4. For maintainers — building the pack

This section is only for the person who prepares the package for others (or rebuilds it for a new Ubuntu version). A normal user can skip it.

On a working, online machine of the same Ubuntu version as the target:

1. Put the patched XWinTab source into the xwintab folder:

   cp -r /path/to/XWinTab/src            xwintab/src
   cp    /path/to/XWinTab/build32-def.sh  xwintab/build32-def.sh
   

2. Build the pack:

   ./make-offline-bundle.sh
   

   This downloads Wine and its dependencies, copies the Windows components, compiles the tablet code, and produces flashcs6-pack.tar.gz.

3. Create a Release on GitHub and attach flashcs6-pack.tar.gz to it.

4. Copy the file's download link into config/settings.env:

   WINE_PACK_URL="https://github.com/<you>/<repo>/releases/download/<tag>/flashcs6-pack.tar.gz"
   

5. Commit and push.

The git repository stays small (only scripts and source). The large pack lives on the Release. Because the pack contains Wine packages, it is tied to one Ubuntu version and one CPU type — build one pack per kind of target system.

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5. How it works

Three pieces have to cooperate:

• Wine runs the Windows program (Flash) on Linux.
• The tablet needs two things to give pressure: it must be switched into its full ("proprietary") mode, and Flash must talk to it through a tablet driver called wintab. The standard Linux wintab support does not work with Flash, so this project ships a patched driver (see section 6).
• System glue turns the tablet's full mode on at every boot and keeps the pen mapped to the right screen.

The installer sets up all three, plus a menu shortcut.

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6. the XWinTab patches

This patch is specific for the project.

Getting pen pressure into Flash through Wine normally fails, for a whole chain of reasons. The solution is a patched version of XWinTab — a small open‑source "wintab" driver.

XWinTab was originally written for the painting app Rebelle. Flash uses the tablet in ways Rebelle never does, which exposed several hidden problems. We found and fixed seven of them so XWinTab now works with the whole Flash / Animate family:

1. Function numbers. Flash looks up the tablet functions by number, not by name. We added the official numbering so Flash can find them at all.
2. Pens with no buttons. The Huion pen reports zero buttons; the old code rejected it for that. We relaxed the check.
3. The "is there a tablet?" question. Flash asks a specific question to detect a tablet; it was going unanswered, so Flash thought there was none. We answered it.
4. Pressure capabilities. Before showing its pressure controls, Flash asks what the tablet can do (pressure range, axes). Those questions were ignored. We supplied the answers.
5. A copy‑paste typo. One line of the original code pointed a value at itself, which crashed Flash the instant the pen moved. Fixed.
6. A missing safety check. Flash asks "how many pen events are waiting?" while passing an empty bucket; the old code wrote into nothing and crashed. We added the guard.
7. Re‑opening the tablet. Flash lets go of the tablet and re‑opens it every time you close your last document. The old code refused the re‑open, so pressure died until you restarted Flash. It now re‑connects cleanly.

The full technical write‑up (including the exact crash signatures for problems 5 and 6) is in xwintab/PATCHES.md. These fixes are generic: they help any Flash/Animate‑style program, not just one setup, and can be contributed back to the original XWinTab project.

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7. What gets installed

Wine (stable 11.0) — runs the Windows program.

Windows components, added into Wine using winetricks:

Component	What it is for
corefonts	the standard Windows fonts
vcrun2008,vcrun2010	Visual C++ runtimes that Flash needs
msxml3, msxml6	XML engines that Flash uses
gdiplus	a graphics drawing library
atmlib	font support
riched20, riched30	rich‑text fields
fontsmooth=rgb	clean font smoothing

The patched tablet driver — wintab32.dll plus its helper, placed inside Wine and set as the tablet driver for Flash only.

Huion full mode — uclogic-tools switches the tablet into the mode that exposes full pressure. A small system service turns this on automatically at every boot.

Screen mapping — a small login script keeps the pen mapped to the tablet's own screen (so the pen does not roam across all your monitors).

Menu launcher — an "Adobe Flash CS6" entry under Graphics.

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8. Settings

Most people never need this. If your hardware is different, open config/settings.env in any text editor and change the values:

Setting	Meaning
WINEPREFIX_DIR	where Flash gets installed
FLASH_INSTALL_SUBDIR	the folder Flash installs into, inside Wine
TABLET_VID / TABLET_PID	your tablet's USB ID (default Huion 256c:006e)
KAMVAS_OUTPUT	the screen name the tablet uses (e.g. HDMI-0)
WINE_PACK_URL	the Release link to the offline pack

The exact package versions known to work together are listed in config/versions-known-good.txt.

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9. If something is not right

The pen moves the mouse across all screens instead of just the tablet. Restart the computer once more. If it continues, your screen may have a different name on your machine — change KAMVAS_OUTPUT in config/settings.env (you can list your screens with xrandr --listmonitors).

There is no pen pressure at all. Make sure the tablet is plugged in, then restart. If other drawing programs (such as Krita) also have no pressure, the tablet's full mode did not start.

Flash will not start from the menu. Open a terminal and type flash-cs6, then press Enter — any error message there helps identify the problem.

Flash crashes while drawing. This is exactly what the seven patches fix. Make sure it is the patched XWinTab that was installed (the pack contains it), not a stock version.

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10. Credits

• XWinTab by Graham--M — https://github.com/Graham--M/XWinTab (a patched version is included here; see the xwintab folder and xwintab/PATCHES.md).
• uclogic-tools and the hid_uclogic driver by DIGImend — https://github.com/DIGImend

Adobe Flash Professional CS6 is a trademark and product of Adobe. It is not included in this project.