wacom and mandriva woes

[cymbaloum]

Hello,

 

I'm trying to configure my wacom to work with a mandriva 2006 installation.

 

I followed the very helpful post from devries on the subject:

 

- I loaded the wacom module

- I checked that output indeed came from /dev/input/event3

- chmod 666 /dev/input/event3 to allow the user to "listen" to the wacom

- changed the xorg.con file with the code provided by devries

- rebooted the X system

- loaded Gimp

- configured the advanced settings for input devices

 

And got no response using the tablet...

 

So, to summarize: The kernel can hear the tablet, and somehow the X windows system knows about the tablet, since Gimp suggests the stylus in input devices settings.

 

But I can get no reaction. The tablet does not move the pointer under KDE, Gimp is impervious to it, same for Krita. Somehow, I have the feeling that the X system is not really listening to the tablent output.

 

Can someone make some suggestions on how to proceed?

[Jon Bee]

Hi there, I found in my trials (thanks again Devries and everybody else) a couple steps that you didn't mention:

 

- a complete system reboot seemed to be a necessary step, and not just an X reboot.

- You may also need to remove the usbmouse driver (type: modprobe -r usbmouse ) (and reboot again)

 

I hope this helps.

 

(BTW, please refer to my latest post in Distro for Arts for a couple of other relevant issues I've come across.)

Edited March 29, 2006 by Jon Bee

[devries]

If you have the cat ouput it means the module works orrectly. Now you just have to edit the xorg.conf for it t work in X. If it works in X (meaning the pointer moves when you move the stylus) it should work in for example the gimp.

 

Good luck

[cymbaloum]

Ok, thanks for your help:

 

- I did the modprobe -r usbmouse thing (don't know if it helped, but can't hurt, I guess)

- I corrected the X configuration (it automatically changed event3 to event0, just like you)

- after (machine) rebooting, I did again chmod 666 /dev/input/event3, before doing startx (I guess if cat does not work as user, it won't work for X

 

After these three changes the tablet is working wonderfully. But the set up is far from perfect. Now every time I want to use the tablet, I need to change the xorg.conf file, reboot, do the chmod thing, and only then launch X. Quite cumbersome....

 

As for your Krita problems, I will make a post in the previous discution (I could get the 1.5 version working with the tablet with no sweat thanks to klik)

[devries]

You could make the xorg.conf non writable. :)

[Jon Bee]

You could make the xorg.conf non writable. :)

 

Okay, that sounded like a good idea, so I thought I tried it, but after I thought I'd made it non-writable, it was rewritten again. I tried by launching Konqueror from the Konsole logged in as the super user, and then entered the Xorg.conf "Properties" and switched off anything that looked like "write permissions". I realise that probably sounds a little corny, but that's the only way I know how to do anything. Is there a better way?

 

By the way, some extra detail: it appears the Xorg.conf file is rewritten if one attempts a hot-plug. Could this be a hint to why the wacom module doesn't work straight off the bat?

 

By the other way, I haven't written anything in a while because I've immersed myself in graphics tablet world lately. I won't post any of my "art" though because it still looks terrible, but at least now that is purely an artist-related-error, not a hardware one! ;)