SuSE 9.3 + wacom intuos 3 problem
 

Hi guys/gals,

This is my first ever post here, but I am regular visitor on this forum and I found many solutions to my Linux related problems here before.
I am not exactly a noob in using Linux (SuSE distro), and I know quite a lot about programming but I never dug into the Linux kernel/techy stuff before ;)

So here's my problem. I finally managed to get my gf to switch OS from Windows to SuSE 9.3 and guess what, she likes it a lot :D ... but, she is an artist and so, obviously, she needs a support for her Wacom Intuos 3 tablet.
I searched these forums and Internet and I guess I got quite far with installing the darn thing, but now I'm totally stuck and I would appreciate any help from you Linux wizards.

I managed to get RPM package from Novell site(Linuxwacom RPM), installed it and it seems that the drivers installation went OK, as I can access the tablet's configuration panel from YAST. BUT, whatever I do there(settings, etc...) the tablet still reacts like a second mouse or something. I mean, I did switch the setting to "absolute" (from relative), and nothing. I looked through various answers and tutorials, tried to uninstall all mice from sax2(I think I followed the procedure I found here), then installed mouse again and added tablet. Still no change in behaviour. I tried to look into Linuxwacom source(to recompile the driver), but it seems, the documentation is not "detailed enough" for guys like me who are just barely starting to tinker with "Linux internals" - heck even the XF86Config doesn't exist in 9.3 (replaced by xorg.conf if I recall correctly) and small stuff like this. I am willing to try recompiling again(if really needed), but would really appreciate any pointers to the directions of a good step-by-step tutorial or maybe direct help in this thread.

So, anyone got any ideas of what I should do to make the tablet behave like, well, the tablet and not a mouse?

Cyber beer for anyone who can help me out here as I would really love to see my gf stay with Linux and not run away back to the "evil OS" ;)

P.S. English is not my native language so I apologize for any mistakes in spelling, gramar, etc...
P.S. 2 : I hope Hardware is appropriate section for this thread. If not, then please move it to Linux-newbie or somewhere.

Hi there,

if you have suse 9.3 then there is a linux driver included.

under

system - configuration sax2, there is an option to use your wacom graphire or intuos..

My graphire is working fine..

hope this helps

J

Tnx for reply mate but I already knew that. The problem is that it seems that mouse driver is hijacking the tablet or something(it looks that way). Tablet IS working but is behaving like a mouse on steroids. It only works in relative mode(no absolute mode even if you switch the absolute setting on in SAX2) and if you "fiddle" with tablet settings in SAX2, it seems like those settings are simply ignored by the system.

Thanks for reply anyways :)

Anyone else who might have an idea as to what the heck is going on? :confused: (still wasn't able to solve the problem)

OK guys let me try the different approach. I will again try to recompile/install the drivers from linuxwacom project and will ask about the specific errors/warnings/strange things I encounter.

So for the first one, I already noticed strange thing if following the documentation.
All is OK until the time when I have to execute xxd commands.



As soon as I execute xxd mouse0 ... the konsole stops responding and just waits(I need to use Ctrl-C to get back to prompt). So ...how do I approach this?
It says in the docs that you shold try rmmod evdev a few more times if that happens but if I do that I get "Module evdev does not exist........" message which kindda indicates that rmmod command worked. or am I just looking at these thing from the wrong angle?
Linux SuSE 9.3 with Kernel 2.6.11 is the system by the way.

Come on guys it must be some Linux guru here lurking about :) I'm desperate :)

Ok, as you very well know the wacom drivers are going to a pain to configure correctly. I also obtained the rpm from Suse and it didn't do me much good in getting it configured properly. Leave it installed though. You said that you weren't getting any response from the command "xxd event0" Go ahead and try running these two commands.

rmmod wacom
modprobe wacom
tail /var/log/messages

The output for me was this

Sep 12 12:01:11 Linux kernel: input: Wacom Intuos2 4x5 on usb-0000:00:0b.1-1
Sep 12 12:01:11 Linux kernel: usbcore: registered new driver wacom
Sep 12 12:01:11 Linux kernel: drivers/usb/input/wacom.c: v1.40:USB Wacom Graphire and Wacom Intuos tablet driver

It effectively reloaded the wacom driver.
Now run this command

xxd /dev/input/event0

If you see a whole lot of activity you are now good. If not try the following commands
xxd /dev/input/event2
xxd /dev/input/event3
xxd /dev/input/event4
xxd /dev/input/event5
At first I got activity on event5 and there is a long process that you have to go through in order to resolve that problem. If you get activity on event0 then you will have to modify your /etc/X11/xorg.conf . SaX didn't configure it properly for me. (I didn't have any of the pressure sensitive features activated). But first,let me know how this initial part goes. I will do my best to help you through this install. It took me a good portion of a day to finally get it running correctly and I know how frustrating it can be.

Michael

Wow, I almost gave up on this. Let me first thank you here for your reply :) ...
OK then, I re-installed the RPM driver package and tried to do what you wrote.

The first one(rmmod wacom) told me : Module wacom does not exist in /proc/modules.
Second (modprobe wacom) executed but no output.
Third (tail /var/log/messages) told me :
So...I got kindda encouraged by the fact that something to do with the tablet was happening ...


OK I did that and I got a response from the tablet on event3... so what am I supposed to do from here? :)

and tnx again for the help...

No problem at all for the response. It looks as though your driver is installed and ,for some reason, it isn't bound to event0 it's bound to event3. This shouldn't be an issue though. My tablet actually operates on event5. So, this is what you need to do from here...

Step 1.
Open your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file using your favorite editor.
(Be careful editing this file because if you get one setting incorrect your desktop will fail to initiate! Believe me I have made mistakes a couple of times and it wouldn't start up. You may want to save a copy of the xorg.conf file.)

You are going to want to delete the section that Sax created. It should look something like this....

Section "InputDevice"
Driver "wacom"
Identifier "Mouse[1]"
Option "BottomX" "30000"
Option "BottomY" "24000"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/event0"
Option "InputFashion" "Tablet"
Option "Mode" "Absolute"
Option "Name" "GRAPHIRE / INTUOS (USB)"
Option "SendCoreEvents" "on"
Option "Tilt" "on"
Option "Type" "cursor"
Option "USB" "on"
Option "Vendor" "WACOM"
EndSection

So, after your delete this part, go ahead to step2.

Step 2.

You have to add three sections into your xorg.conf file. Using the info that you gave me from the last post here's exactly what you want to add in place of what you deleted in Step1.

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Stylus1"
Driver "wacom"
Option "type" "stylus"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/event3"
Option "Mode" "Absolute"
Option "SendCoreEvents" "on"
Option "USB" "on"
Option "Vendor" "WACOM"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Cursor1"
Driver "wacom"
Option "type" "cursor"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/event3"
Option "Mode" "Absolute"
Option "SendCoreEvents" "on"
Option "USB" "on"
Option "Vendor" "WACOM"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Eraser1"
Driver "wacom"
Option "type" "cursor"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/event3"
Option "Mode" "Absolute"
Option "SendCoreEvents" "on"
Option "USB" "on"
Option "Vendor" "WACOM"
EndSection

You must add all of this if you want your tablet to work properly. But you're not done yet. :-) go on to step 3.

Step 3. Look for the portion of the xorg.conf file that looks like this....

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Layout[all]"
InputDevice "Keyboard[0]" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Mouse[1]" "CorePointer"
Option "Clone" "off"
Option "Xinerama" "off"
EndSection

Go ahead and add the following so that it looks like this.......

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Layout[all]"
InputDevice "Keyboard[0]" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Mouse[1]" "CorePointer"
Option "Clone" "off"
Option "Xinerama" "off"
InputDevice "Cursor1" "SendCoreEvents"
InputDevice "Stylus1" "SendCoreEvents"
InputDevice "Eraser1" "SendCoreEvents"
EndSection

Ok, now you are done editing the xorg.conf file. Go ahead and save the xorg.conf file and restart the xserver.
Once the server boots back up you should be in business. I am now able to use my stylus in Gimp and it has all of the pressure sensing features enabled. I am unsure of what image editing software that you are using but if you would like to know how to configure Gimp to use the pressure sensitive settings go ahead and open this page....

http://linuxwacom.sourceforge.net/index.php/howto/gimp

If you have any further questions please let me know and I may be able to answer them.

Michael

OK, it seems I will need to bother you some more Michael :)
I did the changes in xorg.conf and at first booting to system failed. Beeing curious and not wanting to bother you again if not really necessary, I took a look into log file. It said "no screens found" so I figured the problem was in ServerLayout thingy where the Screen identifier was missing(I got it in old file I copied for a backup). And voila...system booted just fine and Wacom tablet is responding, BUT, again like a mouse on steroids :( No absolute mode for starters, nothing. Still seems like mouse driver is hijacking the tablet or something :confused: I tried to run wacomcpl utility, but it refuses to start because it says :
maybe it's best if I just copy my current xorg.conf file so you can take a look if everything is like it's supposed to be...
And again, thanks for your help mate. :)

Hmm, it does seem as though the mouse driver is taking control. And the reason I agree with you is this...

Your system...

Sep 15 04:55:29 linux hal-subfs-mount[6812]:
Sep 15 04:56:40 linux kernel: usbcore: registered new driver wacom
Sep 15 04:56:40 linux kernel: drivers/usb/input/wacom.c: v1.40:USB Wacom Graphir
e and Wacom Intuos tablet driver

my system...
Sep 12 12:01:11 Linux kernel: input: Wacom Intuos2 4x5 on usb-0000:00:0b.1-1 <---- the kernel recognized the tablet here.
Sep 12 12:01:11 Linux kernel: usbcore: registered new driver wacom
Sep 12 12:01:11 Linux kernel: drivers/usb/input/wacom.c: v1.40:USB Wacom Graphire and Wacom Intuos tablet driver

When I unloaded and then reloaded the wacom driver my system then recognized my tablet. Yours did not. Which may mean that your mouse driver is taking control. But all hope isn't lost. There's a way to stop the kernel from recognizing your tablet as a mouse device and that information is contained at this link....

http://linuxwacom.sourceforge.net/in...p/howto/noctrl

I would download the driver from the wacom project...

http://linuxwacom.sourceforge.net/index.php/dl

Unpack the driver to a directory . Go to the console and do this....

cd <to the directory that you unpacked the driver to>

./configure --enable-hid --enable-usbmouse --enable-evdev --enable-mousedev

make

make install

This should install the necessary components that are needed to get your tablet working. After installing the driver again go ahead and change your xorg.conf file the way I discussed in the previous posts and then you should be able to use the tablet with full functionality. If this doesn't work then I'm uncertain as to what is causing the problem. I hope that this helps.

Michael

OK, I downloaded the driver from linuxwacom site and followed your instructions. But now I stumbled to another problem and that is an error while the thing is executing the make command.
Compiling stops in the middle fo the process and returns this error :
Apparently this stops the process : ** You requested to build mousedev with configure, but mousedev is not a module in your kernel config. Stop.

Any ideas? (and I really feel stupid at this point :( )

The plot thickens. Well, what I would suggest is to run the

./configure --enable-hid --enable-usbmouse --enable-evdev --enable-mousedev

again and notice if you get any errors during the execution of that command. If that is the case then chances are you may be missing a package of some sort. I would unpack the package again and start with a clean set of files. Let me know how this goes. When you run the command from above you will have to scroll up to see if you are missing any packages. It will let you know by displaying errors.

Michael

OK this is gonna be long, but I reckon better this than for me to miss something important.
Here's the output from the configure command :
There is a warning that wacom_drv.o cannot be build without XF86 build environment or Xorg SDK. I checked the system and it seem that XORG-X11 SDK is installed(if that is what we are talking about here) and as far as XF86 is concerned, there is installation of xf86tools on the system (if, again, that is actually what this warning is referring to).

Any idea on what is wrong here? :confused:

Hm, and actually after some more research on the wacomlinux project this catched my eye :

For kernel 2.6, you need to configure the kernel modules (wacom, hid, mousedev, usbmouse, evdev) under your kernel source directory before configuring linuxwacom.

Maybe this has something to do with the error? (as it says You requested to build mousedev with configure, but mousedev is not a module in your kernel config. Stop.)?? :confused:

Hmm, I'm unsure what exactly they are talking about by building those different modules before installing the driver. There's one more thing that I can think of though. Just try installing the driver ,and seeing that the XORG-X11 SDK package is the one you are looking for, try using the following command.

./configure --enable-wacom --with-xorg-sdk="The directory where your SDK file is located"

int my case the command was like this.

./configure --enable-wacom --with-xorg-sdk=/usr/X11R6/lib/Server

the portion that says "--with-xorg-sdk=/usr/X11R6/lib/Server" tells where your Xorg sdk package is located. If you are uncertain where yours is located do a search for the file "xf86Version.h". There is one strange thing though. In my case my xf86Version.h file was located in the directory /usr/X11R6/lib/Server/include . but notice you don't need to place /include at the end of where the directory is actually located it automatically does that for you and placing it there would only create more errors. I hope that this helps out.

Michael