HOW TO Set Up the Bamboo Pen & Touch in Lucid

[Cecilio]

Hi Favux,

Thank you very much for your quick answer. I read the notice you mention but I thought it was referring to the default wacom.ko. That's why i decided to follow the instructions and to compile everything.

Anyway, I will have to wait or upgrade the OS

Thank you very much for your great work preparing the instructions and supporting us. Great work!

Regards,
Cecilio

[lim1t]

Hi All!

I've just managed to get my Wacom Bamboo (MTE-450A) working with the KDE configuration utility (kde-config-tablet) in KUbuntu 11.10. I wanted the device to function on a single screen with mismatched monitors (NVidia proprietary drivers and twinview), and have ability to assign keystrokes/macros to all the stylus and pad buttons in a GUI.

My particular setup consisted of an Acer Aspire 7520 laptop and an external Acer x163w monitor. Until recently, I was experiencing problems with random cursor jumps and missing and/or incorrect button assignments.

It has taken me a long time to get everything functioning this well, so it's time to share my findings:

(UPDATE - Removed PPA org-edgers/ppa with ppa-purge! to keep stable Xorg version)

1. Update wacom-dkms

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:lekensteyn/wacom-tablet
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install wacom-dkms

2. Update xf86-input-wacom

Get dependencies

sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-dev xutils-dev libxi-dev libxrandr-dev libxext-dev libx11-dev libxinerama-dev libudev-dev

Installation

git clone git://linuxwacom.git.sourceforge.net/gitroot/linuxwacom/xf86-input-wacom
cd xf86-input-wacom/
./autogen.sh --prefix=/usr --libdir=/usr/lib64      # 64 bit
(./autogen.sh --prefix=/usr --libdir=/usr/lib        # 32-bit)
make
sudo make install

3. Install latest version of the Wacom tablet utility.

see https://projects.kde.org/projects/ex...se/wacomtablet

Get dependencies

sudo apt-get install kdelibs5-dev kdebase-workspace-dev juxorg-dev xserver-xorg-dev libxi-dev libxinerama-dev x11proto-xinerama-dev libxrandr-dev

Install the package (be sure to purge any existing installations!)

git clone git://anongit.kde.org/wacomtablet
cd wacomtablet
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ../ -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=`kde4-config --prefix` -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=release
make
sudo make install

4. Reboot

5. Modify /usr/share/kde4/apps/wacomtablet/data/wacom_devicelist to configure device buttons using

xev

to test signals.

6. Unplug/replug in device as necessary when finished.

The result is a fully working device, on multiple screens, that is fully configurable with the specified GUI; however, there are some potential pitfalls:

• Delete any old profiles as they seem to persist and cause unexpected behavior.
• I have to disable 'hover click' to get it's intended behavior on my device.
• Given a horizontal twin-view setup with resolutions [ A x B ][ C x D], the configuration package seems to have a bug when mapping the device to monitor [ C x D ] when (B > D); that is, when the vertical or Y-dimension of the mapped monitor is less than that of the total extent of the setup. If you experience this problem, just choose monitor resolutions with (B <= D) accordingly.

Hope this helps someone!

Final note: Using and Configuring my Wacom table is now IMO better that Windows was/is, so a big thanks to everyone for their hard work!

[Lekensteyn]

Update for Natty users: 0.12.1-0ubuntu1~ppa3

If ppa:lekensteyn/wacom-tablet did not work for you on Natty, it's because of the older dkms and kernel packages. It was reported to me by Luca and the packages should be ready within half an hour.

[chickendude]

I just wanted to say thank you! I finally got my Bamboo Pen CTL-470 working wonderfully with Lekensteyn's ppa!

[lim1t]

I've updated my last post to include Lekensteyn's PPA instead of an (unstable) upgrade of Xorg. It work's just as well or better on KUbuntu 11.10, with full GUI support.

Thanks again for everyone's hard work! - it's all working perfectly (Blender 3D, Gimp, ... etc.)

[civetta]

I have a bamboo pen and touch (CTH-460-DE) and Ubuntu 11.10, 64.

I installed input-wacom-0.12.1's wacom.ko as per step I on the first post. Then I cloned the xf86-input-wacom git repository following II. c).

I tweaked the setting using xsetwacom and most things work very nicely. I almost have touch where I want it. The only thing that's really bugging me is that when I do 2 finger scrolling, I need to scroll for quite a while with no reaction, then the page jumps up or down. If I keep my fingers on the tablet, it scrolls smoothly, but if I remove them and start scrolling again, the same lag happens. Any way to change this behaviour?

Thanks for all your great work!

[Favux]

Hi civetta,

The only thing that's really bugging me is that when I do 2 finger scrolling, I need to scroll for quite a while with no reaction, then the page jumps up or down. If I keep my fingers on the tablet, it scrolls smoothly, but if I remove them and start scrolling again, the same lag happens. Any way to change this behaviour?

Huh, I have some lag but not that noticeable. Maybe it's our starting references, i.e. things are so much better than they were. The main thing I've been on the look-out for is if anybody has better zoom defaults than the current ones. We could try messing with scroll a bit I suppose but I think the default Chris and I came up with is pretty good. If you cloned xf86-input-wacom any time in the last nine days, which seems likely , you have the 0.12.1 gesture improvements by Alexey Osipov. Not sure where I am on that, I'll have to check that out. Hopefully there hasn't been a regression in the lag time!


Hi everybody,

A new xf86-input-wacom, 0.12.1, is due out shortly. It has some more gesture improvements courtesy of Alexey Osipov's contributions to Chris Bagwell's ongoing efforts.

New is 'Left mouse button' dragging support.

Now, to do a single tap you just tap (touch and untouch). Actual click happens after TapTime period.

To drag something you make a tap (touch and untouch) and then quickly (in TapTime period) touch device again. Then drag.

[civetta]

Thanks Favux. I'll remember to clone git frequently and let you know if there are improvements in the lag.

-The tablet seems very reactive when I keep my two fingers down, it seems though it takes some time for the two finger scroll gesture to be recognized, regardless of how fast I'm trying to scroll.

-It also seems like it always takes about the same scroll distance for the gesture to be recognized.

[civetta]

By the way, the new scroll behavour is a HUGE improvement on what was happening before (i.e. scroll and zoom were getting confused).

[Favux]

-It also seems like it always takes about the same scroll distance for the gesture to be recognized.

Right, that's the way it is in the code.

the new scroll behavour is a HUGE improvement on what was happening before (i.e. scroll and zoom were getting confused).

For sure, but...

-The tablet seems very reactive when I keep my two fingers down, it seems though it takes some time for the two finger scroll gesture to be recognized, regardless of how fast I'm trying to scroll.

I'm just not seeing that big a lag (in Maverick). I think I have the latest xf86-input-wacom on my Maverick and Oneiric installs. I'll have to bebop into Oneiric and check that again. Might just be a difference in how we're gesturing.

Chris did mention there will always be a slight lag until the algorithm for deciding whether it is a scroll or zoom gesture is improved. I gather fingers moving apart or together v.s. parallel. Some non-computationally intensive algorithm which could at least process the first few finger coordinate points to make the discrimination. I believe his guess was it would be some kind of arctangent function. He was soliciting input from the mathematically inclined. I did a quick google to see if there were any publicly available algorithms to look at and use as a starting point, didn't find much.