Wacom USB tablet howto

From openSUSE

Wacom USB based tablets can be used with openSUSE; including the models Bamboo, Graphire, Intuos3, and possibly others. Using Wacom tablets with Linux is made possible by the Linux Wacom Project

This page does not address tablet PC's. If you are interested in tablet PC's, see Tablet PC wiki article, and Danny Kukawka's user page.

Install the Packages

Open YaST's software management module and search for wacom. Install all three of these packages:

• x11-wacom-input
• x11-wacom-input-devel
• x11-wacom-input-tools

Discover the Vendor ID of a Wacom tablet using lsusb

Plug in your wacom tablet. Note, this is for USB tablets. The Vendor ID is in red and bold below, in my case, you can see it's 056a.

house:~> lsusb


 Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
 Bus 003 Device 002: ID 051d:0002 American Power Conversion Uninterruptible Power Supply
 Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
 Bus 002 Device 010: ID 056a:00b1 Wacom Co., Ltd
 Bus 002 Device 007: ID 047d:105d Kensington PocketMouse Bluetooth
 Bus 002 Device 006: ID 0a5c:3535 Broadcom Corp.
 Bus 002 Device 004: ID 0409:0059 NEC Corp. HighSpeed Hub
 Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
 Bus 001 Device 002: ID 03f0:0805 Hewlett-Packard HP4470C
 Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

Give X a static pointer using a udev rule

Now, X11 assigns the driver to the input device, but the kernel gives the Wacom a new device name every time it's plugged in. We don't want to edit xorg.conf and restart X every time we plug in the wacom, so, to get around this, we can create a rule that says any device with the Wacom's Vendor ID will also be assigned the additional device name "wacom". To do this, fire up your favorite text editor as root and add this line to /etc/udev/rules.d/10-local.rules:

(you may need to make the file, and DO NOT JUST COPY THIS LINE! Make sure to check your Vendor ID and change it appropriately)
KERNEL=="event*", SYSFS{idVendor}=="056a", NAME="input/%k", SYMLINK="input/wacom"

Load the new rule

To load your new rule, just type:
house:~> sudo udevadm control --reload_rules

If you get bash: udevadm: command not found then you don't have udevadm in your path. You can add it to your path, or log in root and execute the same command. Thanks to Tilo Winkler for pointing out that SuSE 10.2, you need to use udevcontrol instead:

house:~> sudo udevcontrol reload_rules

Modify xorg.conf

It's likely many readers will have seen and tried many variations of this, but this works (you probably want to change the "NAME" to the name of your wacom device, eg, Intuos 3. Do make a backup of xorg.conf before modifying it.

house: X11> cp xorg.conf xorg.conf.YYYYMMDDHHmm

 Section "InputDevice"
   Driver       "wacom"
   Identifier   "cursor"
   Option       "Device" "/dev/input/wacom"
   Option       "InputFashion" "Tablet"
   Option       "Mode" "Relative"
   Option       "Name" "GRAPHIRE v1-4 (USB)"
   Option       "SendCoreEvents" "on"
   Option       "Type" "cursor"
   Option       "USB" "on"
   Option       "Vendor" "WACOM"
 EndSection
 Section "InputDevice"
   Driver       "wacom"
   Identifier   "stylus"
   Option       "Device" "/dev/input/wacom"
   Option       "InputFashion" "Pen"
   Option       "Mode" "Absolute"
   Option       "Name" "GRAPHIRE v1-4 Stylus (USB)"
   Option       "Protocol" "Auto"
   Option       "SendCoreEvents" "on"
   Option       "Type" "stylus"
   Option       "USB" "on"
   Option       "Vendor" "WACOM"
 EndSection
 Section "InputDevice"
   Driver       "wacom"
   Identifier   "eraser"
   Option       "Device" "/dev/input/wacom"
   Option       "InputFashion" "Eraser"
   Option       "Mode" "Absolute"
   Option       "Name" "GRAPHIRE v1-4 Eraser (USB)"
   Option       "Protocol" "Auto"
   Option       "SendCoreEvents" "on"
   Option       "Type" "eraser"
   Option       "USB" "on"
   Option       "Vendor" "WACOM"
 EndSection

You will also need to add these lines to the server layout for the GIMP to use this tablet:

   InputDevice    "stylus" "SendCoreEvents"
   InputDevice    "eraser" "SendCoreEvents"
   InputDevice    "pad"
   InputDevice    "cursor" "SendCoreEvents"

Here's my entire server layout section from xorg.conf:

 Section "ServerLayout"
   Identifier     "Layout[all]"
   Screen         "Screen[0]" 0 0
   InputDevice    "Keyboard[0]" "CoreKeyboard"
   InputDevice    "Mouse[0]" "CorePointer"
   InputDevice    "stylus" "SendCoreEvents"
   InputDevice    "eraser" "SendCoreEvents"
   InputDevice    "pad"
   InputDevice    "cursor" "SendCoreEvents"
   Option         "Clone" "off"
   Option         "Xinerama" "off"
 EndSection

Reload xorg.conf

You will need to either logout and log back in to a new X session, or use the 'switch user' function to launch a new X session (note: this will leave you with two running X sessions, under different configs, so you may find the computer slows down. I recommend just logging out and back in). From the Ubuntu forums howto. Tilo Winkler reports

   InputDevice     "pad"

didn't work for him. If you reload X and it fails to start, you might want to comment this out of your xorg.conf and try to start X again (startx is a good way to do this :-)

USB Hotplugging and KVM's

As of 14 Jul 2009, if a Wacom USB based tablet is unplugged then plugged back in, or a KVM with the tablet attached changes which computer it controls and switches back, the tablet will stop working. According to the Linux Wacom Project:
"X Intput Device Hotplug is not fully supported at Xorg yet. But, Wacom X driver has implemented a workaround for those who have to unplug/replug the tablet while X is running. To make your tablet work without restarting X server, please switch your virtual terminals after replug your tablet. That is, press Ctrl + Alt + F1 together then release them (screen turns to console); and press Ctrl + Alt + F7 together then release them (screen returns back to normal)."

Any tablet customizations set up using xsetwacom or wacomcpl, will be restored using this workaround when the tablet resumes working.

Two weeks after ubuntu 9.04 was released [date?] the wacom driver developer modified the driver to make it HID (Human Interface Device layer) compliant. Instead of putting the variables in /etc/X11/xorg.conf, each device gets it's own parameters file in HAL (hardware abstraction layer). Those changes support hotplugging.

Customizing Tablet Operation

Tablet preferences can be set using a GUI or the command line.

Wacom Control Panel

The Wacom Control Panel is a GUI (graphical user interface) based configuration tool for the Linux Wacom tablet driver. Using the Wacom Control Panel, it is easy to set per-user preferences for tablet options including:

• tablet active area
• pad button functions (also known as "Express Keys")
• pen button functions
• stylus button-click threshold
• eraser button-click threshold
• stylus pressure sensitivity
• eraser pressure sensitivity
• stylus cursor positioning mode (as absolute or relative)
• eraser cursor positioning mode (as absolute or relative)
• stylus cursor speed
• and more

without needing to manually modify the files /etc/X11/XF86Config or /etc/X11/xorg.conf; or use use the xsetwacom command line program.

This may be necessary for Cintiq and TabletPC users.

Opening the Wacom Control Panel

The Wacom Control Panel can be opened using KMenu or from a command line.

Using a Command Line to Open the Wacom Control Panel

Open a shell window and execute: wacomcpl &

Troubleshooting the Wacom Control Panel

wacomcpl needs the packages tk and tcl installed to work.

When the openSUSE 11.1 YaST Software Management tool installs the package x11-input-wacom-tools-0.8.1-36.18.2, which contains wacomcpl, it does not install 2 required packages. These packages are Tcl (tcl-8.5.5-1.38) and Tk (tk-8.5.5-1.14); and must be installed before wacpmcpl will work. If executing wacomcpl in a command shell gives you:
wacomcpl: using TCLLIBPATH="[list /usr lib ]"
/usr/bin/wacomcpl-exec: line 3: exec: wish: not found
your system is missing one or both of these packages, and installing them will enable using wacomcpl.

xsetwacom

xsetwacom is a command-line Wacom driver configuration tool. It changes the pressure sensitivity, click threshold, button functions, cursor mode and speed, and much more without having to manually modify XF86Config or xorg.conf file."

ExpressKeys

Intuos and Cintiq tablets can use ExpressKeys to make the Express Keys work.

General Troubleshooting

There are 2 command line tools that give detailed information about current operation of a tablet, and can be helpful in diagnosing sources of problems.

wacdump

You should not need this for configuration. Yet, if you want to see the computer measuring every input from the tablet, you can use wacdump:
house:~> wacdump /dev/input/wacom

xidump

"The xidump program is similar to wacdump, but it parses and displays event data from the XFree86 XInput extension rather than from the tablet itself. This is useful for seeing what programs like gimp and gsumi are receiving from X."

GIMP Configuration

GIMP, the GNU Image Manipulation Program, can be set to use a Wacom tablet.

1. Open GIMP.
2. From the menu bar in any image editing window, choose "Edit", then choose "Preferences" near the bottom of the menu.
3. The Preferences window will open, with a column of options listed on the left side of the window.
4. In the left hand column, choose the option labeled "Input Devices". This will cause the window to display a new configuration section titled "Input Devices".
5. In the Input Devices section, choose the button labeled "Configure Extended Input Devices".
6. A new window will appear titled "Configure Input Devices". Set the devices mouse, stylus, eraser, and cursor to "Screen" or "Window" as you prefer. Set the pad device to "Disabled", unless you have a specific reason to do otherwise.

Please refer to the GIMP Talk post titled Installing Wacom tablets for use with GIMP in the section labeled "Setting up GIMP" for more details.

Note: the Wacom Control Panel parameter "stylus" >> "Feel" >> "Tip Sensitivity" influences pressure sensitivity in GIMP.

Getting Personal Help

Finally, if the all information on this page does not work for you, you can try contacting Niels Olson (though he's currently a surgical intern and may not be able to get back to you in anything remotely approaching a timely fashion).

References

Ubuntu wiki article
Linux Wacom Project Forums
Wacom's official Linux page
Gentoo Wiki HOWTO: Wacom Tablet
GIMP talk on installing Wacom Tablets
ExpressKeys for getting the ExpressKeys to work on your Intuos, Cintiq, etc.
Ubuntu article on the Wacom Graphire Bluetooth
Wacom Graphire4 Absolute mode, the thread from which much of this is derived.
More steps to sucess with openSUSE and USB Wacom tablets. Thanks to flark for the contribution.

Passed QA check: --Shayon 19:04, 19 October 2009 (UTC)