HOW TO Set Up the Bamboo Pen & Touch in Lucid

[Favux]

Hi mrermia,

Great!! I feel better now.

Let me know how it works once you've settled in to using it.

I'll try to submit some patches to the LWP in the next few days, once you say it's OK, so you don't have to go through this again. I know how to do a git patch for xf86-input-wacom but not a CVS patch for linuxwacom. Have to see if I can figure it out.

[marek_online]

Hi,

I've got my Pen & Touch up and running generally. Thanks to everyone, but especially the tireless Favux for getting things working.

My one issue is with touch. About half the time (but not with any pattern I can see) tapping on the touchpad causes the pointer to jump - usually to the left hand side of the screen, but sometimes to the top. Sometimes is doesn't jump the whole way, just some of it.

I tried to make the adjustment to wcmCommon.c as per the instructions in the first post, but in the version of the source that I have there is no line that looks like

#define BAMBOO_TOUCH_JUMPED 30
In fact, the word "Bamboo" doesn't appear in the entire file. Am I looking in the wrong place?

The only quirk I have to my setup that might be causing the issue is that I'm using TwinView (though aside from this one thing, the touchpad plays very nicely with the two monitors).

Any pointers a great help.

M

[Favux]

Hi marek_online,

They removed the code with a commit on 10-5-10. I'll quote the commit:

Fix Bamboo touchpad "freeze" issue.


Remove part of code that tried to detect invalid packets coming

from touchpad because of known issues from filtering of events

in Bamboo Touch drivers that do not use MT kernel interface.


The size BAMBOO_TOUCH_JUMPED is to small and can hit logic

during normal finger movements. To end user it will look like

touchpad freezes until they remove their finger. This freeze

has been reported by at least a couple of end users to mailing

list.


This is REALY noticable issue when working with MT version of

Bamboo driver because its scalled up the reported X/Y values

and ANY movement will exceed BAMBOO_TOUCH_JUMPED. Unless code

is removed, Bamboo Touch MT can not work with xf86-input-wacom.


Removed code instead of trying to fix it because it can't be fixed

without also breaking gesture logic and the new MT driver solves root

issue.


Signed-off-by: Chris Bagwell <chris@cnpbagwell.com>

Acked-by: Ping Cheng <pinglinux@gmail.com>

Signed-off-by: Peter Hutterer <peter.hutterer@who-t.net>

The last sentence is key. Apparently the 'fix' isn't quite working for you. The MT logic will be in the 2.6.37 kernel's wacom.ko. And MT code is being added to xf86-input-wacom right now in fits and starts. I don't know if that will be enough to help you or if you'll have to wait for 2.6.37.

We could try adjusting some other parameters, checking to see if they exist and apply to touch, like ClickForce, Proximity, Suppress, and RawSample.

[marek_online]

Hi Favux,

Thanks for clarifying things for me. Good to know that a fix is coming. The touchpad is usable enough as is, so I figure I'll just wait for the updates. I might clone and recompile xf86-input-wacom every once in a while and see how things develop.

Thanks,

M.

[mrernia]

Hi mrermia,

Great!! I feel better now.

Let me know how it works once you've settled in to using it.

I'll try to submit some patches to the LWP in the next few days, once you say it's OK, so you don't have to go through this again. I know how to do a git patch for xf86-input-wacom but not a CVS patch for linuxwacom. Have to see if I can figure it out.

ok, tested a while. Pen and eraser are working fine, touch is terrible. lag, jitter, jumps and is also too sensitive to tapping. Absolutly inusable, and thus deactivated. We'll see next release. I've of course tried playing with settings but no success. Thanks anyway!!

[Favux]

Hi mrernia,

Pen and eraser are working fine

Good!

We may be able to fix touch for you if you want to try messing about a little more. Keep the change you already made to xf86-input-wacom's wcmUSB.c. Now we'll start looking at some stuff you were looking at earlier. At about line #498 in wcmUSB.c in xf86-input-wacom/src change:

	if ((common->tablet_id >= 0xd0) && (common->tablet_id <= 0xd3))

to

	if ((common->tablet_id >= 0xd0) && (common->tablet_id <= 0xdA))

The idea was to only include the 4 Bamboo P&T models with touch, but now there are three more. And since you don't have it you don't care that it will now pick up the Bamboo Pen (0xd4), which is stylus with no touch, I hope.

Then at about line #277 in wcmValidate.c in xf86-input-wacom/src add:

		case 0xDA:  /* Bamboo with 2FGT */

so it looks like:

		case 0xD0:  /* Bamboo with 2FGT */
		case 0xD1:  /* Bamboo with 2FGT */
		case 0xD2:  /* Bamboo with 2FGT */
		case 0xD3:  /* Bamboo with 2FGT */
		case 0xDA:  /* Bamboo with 2FGT */

Then recompile xf86-input-wacom. With luck that will fix touch for you.

[dr4ziw]

Hi,
I just wanted to report a few things I noticed over the last couple of weeks.
Maybe someone can confirm these issues, so that I know I haven't done anything wrong.

I'm running Ubuntu 10.04 64 bit, everything up to date.
I compiled the linuxwacom.0.8.8-10 for the wacom.ko and the xf86-input-wacom from git according to the first page in this thread.
An .xsetwacom.sh script is in place and is executed every time I'm logging in.

Stylus and eraser is working, as well as touch -- though still moving in 8--10px steps but apparently nobody found a way to solve this, so far. Oh well...

However, when in Gimp, the mouse isn't working at all. That is, I can't paint, I can't select, I can't crop an image. When I'm using the pen, that's all working.
But worst of all, I can't use the guidelines AT ALL. Neither with the mouse nor with the stylus.
At first I suspected Gimp to be broken. But when I boot up without the tablet connected, the mouse is fully working. So it must have something to do with the tablet driver.
I was able to reproduce this with a fresh RHEL 6 beta installation inside VMware -- also using xf86-input-wacom and linuxwacom.0.8.8-10 so that everything's identical. Same problem.
From my point of view, this should be the most problematic issue, and I wonder why nobody has mentioned it up to now.

Secondly, I'm using SideFX Houdini from time to time, and the sculpt tool there is pressure sensitive. That's also not working. Strictly speaking, it's not working anymore, because I remember that it was working in the past. I think, that was before touch and gestures were implemented, but I don't know if that's the reason. It could've been even longer, when I had to configure the Bamboo via xorg.conf -- back then under 8.04.
Before I go break anything... Is it a good idea to try to configure the tablet via 10-wacom.conf AND xorg.conf simultaneously, if neccessary?

Hopefully somebody can shed some light on this.


- dr4ziw -

[Favux]

Hi dr4ziw,

Stylus and eraser is working, as well as touch -- though still moving in 8--10px steps but apparently nobody found a way to solve this, so far. Oh well...

Well, as stated in the quote a few posts above, the filter is basically removed removed from the code now. It will be fixed when the MT code is fully implemented both in xf86-input-wacom and the 2.6.37 kernel. Plus if you've noticed the touch resolution is way less than the digitizer. I suspect that the Apple stuff for example has a much higher resolution.

However, when in Gimp, the mouse isn't working at all.

This is dimly ringing a bell. I think this was happening a while ago with Wacom tablets (maybe even before the P&T's came out) and there was a way to "fix" it. How do you have the extended input devices in Gimp configured for stylus, eraser, and mouse?

Secondly, I'm using SideFX Houdini from time to time, and the sculpt tool there is pressure sensitive. That's also not working.

How old is Houdini? When was the code last updated? I'm wondering if pressure is hard coded to expect "stylus" and that's the problem. Because you say:

It could've been even longer, when I had to configure the Bamboo via xorg.conf -- back then under 8.04.
Before I go break anything... Is it a good idea to try to configure the tablet via 10-wacom.conf AND xorg.conf simultaneously, if neccessary?

No you want to use one or the other. If Houdini does require "stylus" then you'd have to go the xorg.conf route, but that loses you hot plugging.

[dr4ziw]

How do you have the extended input devices in Gimp configured for stylus, eraser, and mouse?

Both stylus and eraser are set to "Screen", axis from 1 to 6 (top-down), no buttons assigned.
Mouse is set to "disabled". Screen and window mode isn't usable at all. Besides, it doesn't work either. Already tried that

How old is Houdini? When was the code last updated? I'm wondering if pressure is hard coded to expect "stylus" and that's the problem.

The current version (Houdini 11) is not even half a year old. The current build was only recently released -- say, a couple of weeks.
Anyway, pressure being hard coded sounds plausible, since there's nothing to configure a tablet. Interesting!

No you want to use one or the other. If Houdini does require "stylus" then you'd have to go the xorg.conf route, but that loses you hot plugging.

Losing hot plugging wouldn't hurt. The tablet is always connected, anyway.

Let's assume for a moment that I've no idea how to go "the xorg.conf route". How would I stop the tablet from being configured via 10-wacom.conf, and use the xorg.conf instead? *g*


EDIT:
P.S.

touch resolution is way less than the digitizer.

Sure, but under Windows the movement is smooth, no matter if touch or the pen is being used. Maybe it's interpolated somewhere?
Anyway, to me it's like magic that it's working the way it does, at all.

[Favux]

Mouse is set to "disabled".

That's what it's suppose to be, and with that it should be working. What's your 'xinput --list' saying for the mouse? It's working elsewhere, correct? Just not Gimp.

Let's assume for a moment that I've no idea how to go "the xorg.conf route". How would I stop the tablet from being configured via 10-wacom.conf, and use the xorg.conf instead? *g*

Rename it something like '10-wacom.conf.bak'. Use the xorg.conf attached to the bottom of the HOW TO. Modifying it for your video entries, if any, of course. The .xsetwacom.sh won't work because the "Device names" will be different. Which is why there is the xorg.conf version example. And be sure you have a back up of your current working xorg.conf that you can restore from the command line in case you break X.