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Good compatability which, since it's a glorified mouse really, you'd expect. Compatible out of the box in most rpm-based distros. For Slack and Debian, you _may_ need to select kernel modules.
Would you recommend the product? yes | Price you paid? (in USD): $99.00 | Rating: 8
Kernel (uname -r):
2.4.22-1.2115.nptl
Distribution:
Fedora Core 1
I have had no problems using the availible drivers here: http://linuxwacom.sourceforge.net/
It supports most if not all of the features that the windows drivers do, minux the GUI config. They're currently adding support for the buttons on top of the intuos line of tablet as well.
Would you recommend the product? yes | Price you paid? (in USD): None indicated | Rating: 4
Kernel (uname -r):
2.6.8-1.521
Distribution:
Fedora Core 2
My USB Graphire2 did not work out of the box on Fedora Core 2 with kernel 2.6.8 and xorg 6.7.0. Support is available through the linuxwacom project (linuxwacom.sourceforge.net), but I was not able to find an rpm package and the installation process is non-trivial.
INSTALLATION
There is a detailed HOWTO available at:
http://linuxwacom.sourceforge.net/index.php/howto/main
The general steps are as follows:
0) Download, compile, and install the linuxwacom source tarball. This won't make anything work, but it will install testing tools and build the drivers that you can manually install to make things work.
1) You must first load a kernel module to get the tablet recognized by the kernel. It is likely that the tablet will not work in X at this point, but you can verify that the kernel portion of things is operating properly with wacdump (available via linuxwacom). Your kernel may already have the required module, but you still need linuxwacom to get wacdump if you want to test things.
2) You must then install the wacom driver for X (different than the kernel module, and required in addition to it) and edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf (on FC2, maybe something very different on other distros) to get the tablet recognized by X. At this point basic mouse function should work, and you should be able to test things with xidump (available via linuxwacom). Again, it is possible your version of X already has the required driver but if you have problems you'll want xidump and wacdump. As a sidenote, I am unable to test the wacom mouse with xidump if I set it as my corepointer, I get an "unable to open device" error even though the mouse works. I assume this is because X reserves for itself exclusive access to the corepointer.
3) After X is configured to recognize the tablet the mouse should work normally, but it may still be necessary configure each application you wish to draw with. For the Gimp 2.0.4 on Fedora this is done as follows:
a) File --> Preferences --> Interface --> Input Devices
--> Configure Extended Input Devices
b) There you can enable your extended input devices
c) File --> Dialogues --> Device Status
d) There you can set properties for each pointer (set the eraser
to erase, the pen to draw, and the mouse to select... for
example)
The linuxwacom HowTo has a section on the Gimp as well:
http://linuxwacom.sourceforge.net/index.php/howto/gimp
PROBLEMS AND NOTES
If I were doing this again from scratch I would skip linuxwacom and see if I could get things working just by editing 'xorg.conf'. I think it might 'just work'.
Since you install a kernel module and a X driver in a package managed location, this setup is prone to break if you use a package manager like yum or apt to update X or your kernel. I've already lost my pointer to an X update once and it took me three days to fix it. Total pain.
Although the documentation from the linuxwacom project is detailed, I found it difficult to read. It assumes familiarity with kernel recompilation, kernel module installation, and XFree86/Xorg configuration and it does not refer the reader to more basic introductions to these topics. I read through the howto several times before starting and had problems anyway. Although some of my problems were noted in the documentation, I wasn't able to quickly identify them because the symptoms were not described.
CONCLUSION
The USB Graphire2 IS supported, but I wouldn't say its well supported on FC2. The install process is difficult, especially because the linuxwacom documentation is somewhat obtuse. The fact is that the install requires digging fairly deeply into your system, and it's hard to document that well. If your distro doesn't support the Graphire2 out of the box, it may be worth working with them to get it fixed there because the manual installation process is difficult and unreliable when used in conjunction with a modern package managed system.
Would you recommend the product? yes | Price you paid? (in USD): $80.00 | Rating: 3
Kernel (uname -r):
2.6.8-2-k7
Distribution:
Debian Sarge
Trouble getting it to work with debian sarge (still haven't gotten it working yet). Doesn't automatically detect libraries, and still have to get it to detect xfree86. Works somewhat with standard drivers, but can't do anything, the cursor stays in the top right corner, gonna try to get it working today.
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