problems using usb mouse and wacom tablet together

rjlee · 03-01-2008, 12:53 PM

I have a laptop with a built-in track-pad, a generic USB mouse with ball (2d-wheel) and USB Wacom Intuos3 graphics tablet. All works well provided that I use only one or the other and have it plugged in continuously from booting up.

However, I would prefer to be able to plug in the tablet and mouse when the machine is running (or just before waking it up from hibernate). If I do that, then I end up with problems.

The trackpad works fine, but the mouse is unsuable; the cursor moves very slowly even when making broad sweeping gestures with the mouse. Similarly for the tablet, which seems to move only one pixel for each complete sweep of the tablet (although I think I've seen it moving slowly in relative mode as well).

My info:

Factory-installed Ubuntu on a Dell Inspiron 6400, upgraded to Ubuntu 7.10 (Gusty).

Code:

$ lsusb
Bus 005 Device 117: ID 056a:00b2 Wacom Co., Ltd 
Bus 005 Device 056: ID 0d8c:0006 C-Media Electronics, Inc. 
Bus 005 Device 055: ID 067b:2303 Prolific Technology, Inc. PL2303 Serial Port
Bus 005 Device 054: ID 067b:2305 Prolific Technology, Inc. PL2305 Parallel Port
Bus 005 Device 053: ID 0b95:7720 ASIX Electronics Corp. 
Bus 005 Device 051: ID 0f62:1001 Acrox Technologies Co., Ltd 
Bus 005 Device 050: ID 0409:0059 NEC Corp. HighSpeed Hub
Bus 005 Device 049: ID 0409:0059 NEC Corp. HighSpeed Hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 0000:0000  
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 0000:0000  
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000  
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000  
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

When trying to drag the stylus across the tablet, I get this syslog message, repeated with incrementing numbers; seems to come up once for every time I touch the stylus to the tablet (no messages from moving the mouse):

Code:

Mar  1 18:49:10 fandlinga kernel: [369443.540000] usb 5-7.4: USB disconnect, address 122
Mar  1 18:49:10 fandlinga kernel: [369443.900000] usb 5-7.4: new full speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 123
Mar  1 18:49:10 fandlinga kernel: [369444.008000] usb 5-7.4: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
Mar  1 18:49:10 fandlinga kernel: [369444.008000] input: Wacom Intuos3 9x12 as /class/input/input352
Mar  1 18:49:10 fandlinga logger: device 5-7.4:1.0 is bound to the wacom driver
Mar  1 18:49:10 fandlinga logger: no need to rebind
Mar  1 18:49:11 fandlinga kernel: [369444.564000] usb 5-7.4: USB disconnect, address 123
Mar  1 18:49:11 fandlinga kernel: [369444.928000] usb 5-7.4: new full speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 124
Mar  1 18:49:11 fandlinga kernel: [369445.036000] usb 5-7.4: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
Mar  1 18:49:11 fandlinga kernel: [369445.036000] input: Wacom Intuos3 9x12 as /class/input/input353
Mar  1 18:49:11 fandlinga logger: device 5-7.4:1.0 is bound to the wacom driver
Mar  1 18:49:11 fandlinga logger: no need to rebind

Can anyone shed some light on this issue? I am not sure what other information I can include

Many thanks,

Robert Lee.

aus9 · 03-02-2008, 07:09 AM

not that I have any of your devices, but you may consider permanent naming of devices so udev does not get confused

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7316

2) altho its none of my business, with a laptop on battery have you considered it might be more energy efficient to just turn it off?

rjlee · 03-02-2008, 08:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aus9

not that I have any of your devices, but you may consider permanent naming of devices so udev does not get confused

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7316

Thanks; I will try this though I have to admit I hadn't considered that changing device names should have any impact at all on this.

The problem always happens if I have both the mouse and tablet plugged in when I power up, be it for a clean boot or a restore from hibernate. And the second device to be plugged in after boot-up doesn't work properly either.

But with just one device in from boot-up to power down it works fine.

Quote:

Originally Posted by aus9

2) altho its none of my business, with a laptop on battery have you considered it might be more energy efficient to just turn it off?

It seems to take longer to hibernate (actually suspend-to-disk) and restore than it does to shutdown and reboot, and when actually hibernated it uses no power, so I'm technically saving power slightly. But in any case it usually runs on the mains so power consumption isn't a major issue.

My big problem is having to unplug the tablet and plug in the mouse, and then reboot to switch between GIMP/Inkscape using a tablet, and an FPS game using the mouse — rather than shutting down to throw it in a bag to carry around, which I only do occasionally, and would happily reboot each time if it actually fixed the issue.