I do not know what Flash 8 is (Adobe Flash?) but the Wacom tablets work well with The Gimp.
Unfortunately, I am also not a Mint user, but it should not have any special requirements for Wacom support.
A man page is a primary form of documentation on Unix/GNU/Linux platforms, they are
manual pages accessible through a teminal window using the
man command. For the Wacom driver you would find it like this...
Scroll around it with the arrow keys, 'Q' to quit.
That will either open the page or report something like "No manual entry for xsetwacom".
If the page exists then the Wacom driver is installed on your system (manual pages are typically installed with their software).
You might find this book,
Rute Users Tutorial and Exposition helpful for overall Linux use, Section 4.7 covers manual pages.
The fact that the tablet draws at all indicates that the driver is working. Pressure sensitivity requires setup within the application primarily because there are many ways that it can be used.
In The Gimp you can set up pressure sensitivity through the Edit > Preferences > Input Devices dialog, and also in the Tool Options for individual tools.
A quick search of DuckDuckGo shows many hits for setting up the Wacom with The Gimp, but
Configuring Gimp for pen tablets (like Wacom's Bamboo Fun) looks like exactly what you need for pressure sensitivity.
Again, I do not have a Bamboo, but we have Intuos4 tablets and they work great with Linux and The Gimp.