Wacom Tablets

Nov 11 2006

Getting a wacom tablet running is still quite painful. Even if you are lucky and your distribution ships a working kernel driver/X driver combination, there’s still quirks that make the tablet not work.

A very common problem is that /dev/input/event* devices get shuffled around when you unplug mice or tablets or sometimes it happens on its own. There is a neat way to specify the device in the xorg.conf by ID, just look up your devices in /dev/input/by-id/. A better tool to check your input rather than doing cat /dev/input/event0 is using a utility called xxd.

Sometimes the wacom is fighting with a USB mouse if you use the /dev/input/mice combo-device in your xorg.conf. Use a specific mouse device (you can use by-id here as well).

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier     "Mouse0"
    Driver         "mouse"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/input/by-id/usb-Microsoft_Microsoft_5-Button_Mouse_with_IntelliEye_TM_-mouse"
    Option         "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
    Option         "Emulate3Buttons" "yes"
    Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier     "cursor"
    Driver         "wacom"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/input/by-id/usb-Tablet_GD-0405-U-event-mouse"
    Option         "Type" "cursor"
    Option         "Mode" "relative"
    Option         "USB" "on"
    Option         "Xinerama" "on"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier     "stylus"
    Driver         "wacom"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/input/by-id/usb-Tablet_GD-0405-U-event-mouse"
    Option         "Type" "stylus"
    Option         "Mode" "absolute"
    Option         "USB" "on"
    Option         "Xinerama" "on"
    Option         "DebugLevel" "10"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier     "eraser"
    Driver         "wacom"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/input/by-id/usb-Tablet_GD-0405-U-event-mouse"
    Option         "Type" "eraser"
    Option         "Mode" "absolute"
    Option         "USB" "on"
    Option         "Xinerama" "on"
    Option         "DebugLevel" "10"
EndSection

If you use Xinerama it’s very likely you don’t want the tablet to work in the central area in between the monitors :) That’s what the Option “xinerama” “on” is for.

However this is where the succes part of my journey ends. While GIMP provides two modes for the tablet to work, Window, where the tablet space is mapped onto the active image window (sadly I never figured how to make the cursor do that as well, creating a quite confusing situation where you paint while selecting random items on your desktop and moving them onto trash…) and screen which is likely what everyone wants. The problem is that with my dual monitor xinerama setup I have my cursor on the right one and I paint on the left one. Any tips, lazyweb?