  Wacom Tablet HOWTO
  Stefan Runkel <runkel@runkeledv.de>
  Version 1.0.4, Nov 1999

  Installation of (not only) Wacom graphic tablets under linux and  / or
  xfree86
  ______________________________________________________________________

  Table of Contents


  1. Copyright

  2. Introduction

     2.1 New Versions of this Document
     2.2 Feedback and Corrections
     2.3 Acknowledgements

  3. Requirements

     3.1 Which Hardware is supported
     3.2 Which Software is needed
     3.3 Which Software is supported

  4. Tablets as Mouse-Replacement for the Linux-Console

     4.1 Tablets and gpm

  5. Tablets with XFree

     5.1 Required XFree Version
     5.2 Sample XF86Config snippet (simple)
     5.3 Section Module
     5.4 Device Types
     5.5 DeviceName
     5.6 Port
     5.7 DebugLevel
     5.8 Serial num (intuos series only)
        5.8.1 How to find out the serial number of a device
        5.8.2 Serial Num - Example of what has been logged
     5.9 Mode absolute, Mode relative
     5.10 Device Modes Extension, Core, AlwaysCore
     5.11 HistorySize
     5.12 Suppress
     5.13 TiltMode (intuos only)
     5.14 TopX, TopY, BottomX, BottomY Statements
        5.14.1 Getting the maximal X, Y Values, current configuration, and the resolution
        5.14.2 Getting Resolution - Example of what has been logged
     5.15 KeepShape

  6. Changing configuration from within a running X-Server

     6.1 Setting up the Gimp to use XInput devices
     6.2 The Switch Device
     6.3 Buttons
     6.4 Button Mapping with xmodmap for Devices in Core Mode
     6.5 Button Mapping with xinput  for Devices in Extension Mode
     6.6 xsetmode - changing absolute / relative mode
     6.7 xsetpointer - setting the default core device
     6.8 Keys
     6.9 Utilities to use more than one tablet and for toggle support on  / off

  7. Further Information / used documents


  ______________________________________________________________________

  1.  Copyright

  Copyright (c) 1999 by Stefan Runkel Runkel@runkeledv.de

  This document describes the installation of Wacom tablets under linux.
  You may use, disseminate, and reproduce this document freely, provided
  you:

  o  Do not omit or alter this copyright notice.

  o  Do not omit or alter the version number and date.

  o  Do not omit or alter the document's pointer to the current WWW
     version.

  o  Clearly mark any condensed, altered or modified versions as such.



  2.  Introduction



  Graphic tablets are now quite inexpensive and can help allot with the
  work of image manipulation. In addition to that what a mouse can do
  for you they have the following features:


  o  pressure and tilt sensitivity

  o  high resolution motion control

  o  sub-pixel positioning

  o  An input device that looks like and is handled like a normal Pen.

  This document addresses mainly the products from Wacom, because I own
  3 different products of them and because their products are highly
  available in the region of Europe.

  Nevertheless I think it should be easy to adapt the shown concepts to
  other products.


  I have written this document because I could not find anything of that
  kind in the net. Instead I got a large number of documents which
  described that point only in partial. There where (and are) still open
  questions to me after reading what I found, so I had to ask many
  different people to get thinks clearer.

  After all what had to be done, I still think that this document is
  worth it.


  2.1.  New Versions of this Document



  The latest version of this document will be available at
  http://www.runkeledv.de/linux.htm .




  2.2.  Feedback and Corrections



  Comments, corrections, and additions are greatly be appreciated. I can
  be contacted at:

  Runkel@runkeledv.de


  2.3.  Acknowledgements



  I would like to thank all authors listed in the ``Further Information
  / used documents'' Section as well as everyone who answered my
  questions by email.  This HOWTO reflects much of their work.


  3.  Requirements



  This chapter is about what is needed to get your tablet working.

  3.1.  Which Hardware is supported



  First of all, you should have a tablet, of course. This should be a
  product that connects to the serial port (RS232) of your computer,
  because USB support for linux is still under development and it seems
  that ADB will not survive any longer.

  The following Wacom tablets are supported:



  o  ArtZ II series (known in Europe as the UltraPad series - the same
     UltraPad name also was used for earlier tablets that only work
     partially.)

  o  ArtPad II

  o  PL300 (combined LCD screen and tablet)

  o  Pen Partner

  o  Graphire (mouse and pen, you must get at least the alpha 11 driver
     from below.)

  o  Intuos series (support may be only partial with the driver of your
     distribution, get  updated alpha versions from

     Frederic Lepied's page: http://www.lepied.com/xfree86/)


  The older SD and HD series are not supported by the standard XFree86
  driver, however, a modified driver that supports these devices as well
  some OEM products with embedded screens including the IBM Thinkpad 360
  PE and Toshiba T200 is available from: http://hwr.nici.kun.nl/pen-
  computing/pen-computing-formats.html




  3.2.  Which Software is needed




  o   If you want support for the linux console, get the latest version
     of gpm from ftp://ftp.prosa.it/pub/gpm or from
     ftp://animal.unipv.it/pub/gpm (mirror)



  o   If you want support for XFree86, use at least version 3.3.3.1 or
     get the latest from http://www.xfree.org


  3.3.  Which Software is supported




  o  For the linux console, the only program I know is gpm.


  o  For XFree, the keyword is XInput. This specification has to be
     supported by device drivers which provide extra information. In
     turn, XInput has to be understood by programs which want to use
     alternative pointer devices.

  There is a big number of programs based on the gtk library. The gtk
  has XInput support and makes it very easy to use.
  At least the following applications support XInput:



  o  The Gimp - a powerful image manipulation program in the style of
     Photoshop. The 1.1.x instable development version includes XInput
     support as a standard feature. Gimp 1.1.x is in feature hold by the
     time of writing (10/99) and I hope they spend us the 1.2 stable
     version till the end of 1999.

     Obtain Gimp from http://www.gimp.org , it really deserves it !  I
     am sure most of you know this and it was the reason to buy a
     tablet.



  o  gsumi - a simple B/W drawing program that supports drawing /
     erasing with pressure and tilt sensitivity.  Get it from the gsumi
     web page: http://www.gtk.org/~otaylor/gsumi/



  o  xink (By Ralph Levien) - another rudimentary drawing program for X.

     xink is available from:
     ftp://kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu/pub/raph/xink.tar.gz


  o  RasMol - a molecular visualization program that supports a hardware
     dial box using XInput. look at
     http://www.umass.edu/microbio/rasmol/distrib/rasman.htm .



  o  xinput (by Frederic Lepied) - a very useful utility for configuring
     and testing XInput devices.
     xinput is available from:
     ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/utilities/xinput-1.2.tar.gz


  4.  Tablets as Mouse-Replacement for the Linux-Console




  4.1.  Tablets and gpm



  The ``gpm'' daemon supports allot of input devices, including tablets.
  If you want a list of the supported devices of your gpm,  do a gpm -t
  help and you get it.

  The Wacom driver of gpm seems to be for the very old ultrapad models,
  the documentation does not say anything about this. I tested it with
  penpartner, graphire and intuos models but it did not work.  I have
  written graphire-support for gpm, to use it you need at least gpm
  version 1.18.1 .

  However, if you own an old artpad, just try: killall gpm ; gpm -t
  wacom -m /dev/ttyS0 and it should work.
  If you own a graphire, this has to look like: killall gpm ; gpm -t
  graphire -m /dev/ttyS0

  Of course, you get only the buttons and the movement function,
  pressure and tilt are not supported because they are not too useful in
  text-based applications.

  If you use gpm and XFree86, you may or may not run in problems,
  because normally a device can be opened only by one program at a time.
  There are two solutions for that:



  o  The gpm repeater mode. If you start gpm with the "-R protocol"
     option, it will repeat all data it gets to the device /dev/gpmdata.
     Let us say, you have a ps2 type mouse and your gpm call looks like:
     gpm -t ps2 -Rmman then gpm gets your ps2 mouse data and tries to
     translate this into a mman packet, which it will emit to
     /dev/gpmdata. Unfortunately, gpm can translate to only a few
     protocols at the time of writing.  If you want to omit the
     translation and only get the data byte for byte, just call gpm -t
     ps2 -R raw . You can then make XFree use that second device by
     putting the line Device      "/dev/gpmdata" in your XF86Config in
     the pointer section or the Xinput section.


  o  If you use startx, you can modify it that it does a gpm -k before
     the X-Server is started. This option kills a running gpm.


  5.  Tablets with XFree



  5.1.  Required XFree Version



  Minimum ``XFree'' version should be 3.3.3.1 because this version has
  extended XInput support, the second side switch works now and the
  blocking mouse effect has been fixed.
  If you must use any prior version, XInput support should be available
  since 3.1.2.d.


  XInput support in XFree is configured basically in a file called
  XF86Config.  In most cases the XF86Config file is located in /etc or
  in /etc/x11. I will show now a very short configuration section and
  explain then what can be changed and why  this is needed.


  5.2.  Sample XF86Config snippet (simple)





       Section "Module"
       # Wacom Device Driver
       Load "xf86Wacom.so"
       EndSection

       Section "Xinput"
       # Settings for Wacom pen
         SubSection "WacomStylus"    # type of input device
           DeviceName "Pen1"         # Name, choose it free
           Port "/dev/ttyS0"         # Serial Port
           Baudrate 9600             # Usable only for intuos
           Mode Absolute             # Map Tablet Area to Screen
           AlwaysCore                # See text
           HistorySize 200           # Buffer size for motion events
         EndSubSection
       EndSection





  5.3.  Section Module



  XInput support in XFree is reached due to the use of modules. The
  device driver module for Wacom is called ``xf86Wacom.so'' . This goes
  to the "Module" section and has to be appear only once per XF86Config
  file.



  5.4.  Device Types



  A physical device can be:

  o  The tip of your pen

  o  The eraser of your pen

  o  A mouse like the Wacom products lens cursor, 4d-mouse, graphire-
     mouse

  o  The airbrush

  The  penpartner and graphire products simply recognize the type of a
  device, but they can not distinguish them. For example, you can not
  use two different pens, say, one configured red  and one configured
  blue - all what these products say is: "I found a pen tip on my
  surface", or "I found an Eraser on my surface", or "I found a mouse on
  my surface".


  XInput maps the device types to devices, these device types are later
  specified in the XF86Config as a subsection in the Section Xinput:

  o  WacomStylus Tip of a pen or airbrush

  o  WacomErasor Eraser of a pen or airbrush

  o  WacomCursor Mice, like graphire mouse, lens cursor, 4d-mouse

  5.5.  DeviceName



  You must give every configured device a unique name. This name will be
  used later in your program to talk to that device. You can choose this
  name free.



  5.6.  Port



  XInput wants to know at which serial port this device can be found.
  This allows me to use two different tablets at the same time, for
  example a graphire connected to /dev/ttyS0 and a penpartner connected
  to /dev/ttyS1.


  5.7.  DebugLevel



  This statement controls how verbose the Wacom driver is. The Level
  goes from 0 to 10. If this statement is not given, DebugLevel 0 is
  used, which logs the very less.

  Example:


       SubSection "WacomStylus" # Pen
         DeviceName "PenRed"    # Name, choose it free
         ...
         DebugLevel 10          # be very verbose
         ...
       EndSubSection






  5.8.  Serial num (intuos series only)



  The intuos product is more efficient than penpartner and graphire
  because it can distinguish many devices of the same type. This means
  that it is now possible to use two pens, one configured red  and one
  configured blue. As you see, the use of device types is not enough
  information to handle different pens. Therefore, each intuos device,
  be it a pen, ink pen, mouse, or whatever has a serial number, which
  you can specify to aid XInput in resolving the right device. This
  would look like:



       Section "Xinput"
         SubSection "WacomStylus" # Pen
           DeviceName "PenRed"    # Name, choose it free
           ...
           Serial 2609917443      # Serial Number of that device
           ...
         EndSubSection
         SubSection "WacomStylus" # another Pen
           DeviceName "PenBlue"   # Name, choose it free
           ...
           Serial 2609918664      # Serial Number of that device
           ...
         EndSubSection
       EndSection




  It should be said that combined input devices like pens have only one
  serial number. The driver uses the serial number it gets to recognize
  one specific pen and the device type to distinguish the tip of that
  specific pen from its eraser.



  5.8.1.  How to find out the serial number of a device


  1. Set DebugLevel to  6

  2. Start the  X-Server by typing X 2>t

  3. Tip all devices down on the tablet and make a notice of the order
     you tipped them.

  4. Kill the X-Server (usually  Ctrl+Alt+Backspace)

  5. Do a grep serial_num t

  You should get a list of your different numbers.



  5.8.2.  Serial Num - Example of what has been logged



       BEGIN xf86WcmProc dev=0x8354d60 priv=0x833e3f0 type=stylus flags=9 what=1
       xf86WcmProc pWcm=0x8354d60 what=ON
       END xf86WcmProc Success what=1 dev=0x8354d60 priv=0x833e3f0
       device_id=0x96 serial_num=2595227137 type=cursor
       [cursor] abs prox=false x=0 y=0 z=0 button=false buttons=0








  5.9.  Mode absolute, Mode relative



  If you set a device in mode absolute, this means, that the active area
  of the tablet will be mapped to the screen. Every time you go down to
  the tablet at the same point with an absolute device the pointer will
  appear at the same point of the screen.


  If you set a device in mode relative, you will get the well known
  behavior of a mouse. This means, that if you take the mouse off from
  the surface, move it and go down again, the pointer does (ideally) not
  move.


  Example:
  Mode Absolute


  5.10.  Device Modes Extension, Core, AlwaysCore



  XFree knows two pointers: one with only the standard features
  (buttons, moving-capabilities), which is used for selecting menus,
  text, clicking buttons and doing other controlling stuff. This is the
  Core Device.

  The other pointer is used by applications which want more information,
  like pressure and tilt.
  This is the extension device.


  Starting with version 3.3.3.1, the Statement AlwaysCore tells the
  driver that it should send both types of events.


  If you do not specify Alwayscore in your XF86Config, then this device
  is initially used as extension device, this means it is usable only in
  applications but you can not control the menus of your window manager
  with it.


  If Alwayscore is given, then your device acts as core pointer (in
  addition to the mouse) as well as it sends tilt and pressure
  information to applications which opened the device in extention mode.

  You can configure two different logical devices, one in Core-Mode and
  one in Extension-Mode, to the same physical device.
  To do so, simply type two identical sections, only the DeviceName
  statement must differ.  Then specify AlwaysCore only for the last
  section.

  Example:
  AlwaysCore


  5.11.  HistorySize



  This statement sets the buffer size that is used to cache motion
  events.


  5.12.  Suppress



  This statement specifies how many units the device must move before
  the driver moves the pointer. This can be necessary if very large
  resolutions are used.

  Example:
  Suppress 6



  5.13.  TiltMode (intuos only)



  TiltMode enables sending of tilt information for intuos devices. If
  this statement is missing, only pressure information is transferred.



  5.14.  TopX, TopY, BottomX, BottomY Statements



  These four statements allow to reduce the active area of the tablet.
  My intuos A4 oversize, for example, is so big that you can not do
  painting work with it because the ways of  the pen are too long. I use
  these four Statements to tell the driver that it should map only the
  lower left quarter of the tablet to the screen.

  Example:


       TopX        0 #coord of top left point
       TopY     5000
       BottomX  5000 #coord of bottom right point
       BottomY 10000





  5.14.1.  Getting the maximal X, Y Values, current configuration, and
  the resolution

  If you use the above for statements, you sometimes want to make some
  calculations on the size and position of the rectangle to be defined.
  Often the maximal tablet coordinates and the resolution are needed for
  this.  To get these values, start your server: X 2>t.  Kill the X-
  Server (usually  Ctrl+Alt+Backspace) and do a grep "X=" t .You should
  get back the values in question.



  5.14.2.  Getting Resolution - Example of what has been logged



       (--) Wacom IV tablet maximum X=5103 maximum Y=3711 X
            resolution=1000 Y resolution=1000 suppress=6
       (--) Wacom tablet top X=0 top Y=0 bottom X=5103 bottom Y=3711
       (--) Wacom tablet top X=0 top Y=0 bottom X=5103 bottom Y=3711
       (--) Wacom tablet top X=0 top Y=0 bottom X=5103 bottom Y=3711

  5.15.  KeepShape



  This option uses the TopX, TopY statements (or their built in
  defaults, if omitted) and adjusts the BottomX, BottomY statements so
  that


  o  The ratio height / width of the screen is the same ratio on the
     tablet

  o  The active area starting at TopX, TopY of the tablet is as big as
     it can be with the above condition.

  Any given BottomX, BottomY statement is ignored, because these values
  will be calculated.



  6.  Changing configuration from within a running X-Server



  6.1.  Setting up the Gimp to use XInput devices



  ``Gimp'' has built-in XInput support since Version 1.1.x.

  Gimp must know which devices it should use and in what mode. You have
  to open the File/Dialogs/Input Devices - dialog for setting this up.
  You will find two listbox-controls at the top of that window labeled
  Device and Mode . Choose the device to set up from the Device control
  and choose a mode from the Mode -control.

  The modes are:


  o  disabled: Gimp does not use this device.

  o  window: Gimp uses this device. (The cursor is drawn by the
     application ???)

  o  screen: Gimp uses this device.   (The cursor is drawn by the X-
     Server ??? )


  If you see two cursors linked to your device, you have two solutions:

  o  Use mode screen but you may or may not loose the special gimp-tool
     cursors; If so, all cursors will be replaced by the pen cursor.

  o  Configure two different devices in the XF86Config file, one
     AlwaysCore and one not. Tell gimp to use the later one in mode
     window. If you do so and have one of the statements TopX, TopY,
     BottomX, BottomY in your XF86Config, take care to use the same
     adjustments for that statements in both logical devices. If you do
     not, then you get confused because X draws a cursor of the one
     device while the other is active. the effect of this is a cursor,
     very far away from the point of action (hotspot).


  Below the two listbox-controls there is a tab-control with the two
  register tabs Axes and Keys .  Axes assigns an axis a function, it is
  mostly not necessary to change this. But think about a touch-screen
  device which is built in a table rotated by 90 degrees, then you might
  want to swap the x and y axis.


  Some tablets have so called macro keys at the top which may hold some
  often used functions. The Keys tab lets you assign a character to a
  macro key. For example, you can put Ctrl+Shift+R, to a macro key. If
  you activate this key, then the rulers are toggled.
  The current Wacom driver supports only the macro keys of the ultrapad
  series, the macro area of the intuos products is not yet usable for
  that.


  Now we should talk about how the devices can be used. Open the
  File/Dialogs/Device Status -dialog. Open an image.

  You set up each device independently from each other in gimp.

  If you move the cursor with different devices in the image window you
  can see the devices change in the Device Status dialog. If you pick a
  tool, brush, pattern or color with a device, again the changes are
  reflected in the dialog.  You can save the settings in the Status
  Dialog, so that they will be restored before your next session.



  6.2.  The Switch Device



  This is a special device that is always present. It generates an event
  every time a new device becomes the core pointer. It has a pseudo
  "axis".  The "value" of  this axis is the id of the core pointer
  device. I do not know what a user can do with it - this is mainly
  helpful for internal use.


  6.3.  Buttons



  The buttons of the devices are as different as the devices are:
  A pen has at least a tip, but it may have one or two side switches and
  an eraser. A mouse may have up to 32 buttons (but usually 3). Buttons
  are numbered from 1 to the number of buttons. With the next two
  utilities you can change, to what number a button is mapped.


  6.4.  Button Mapping with xmodmap for Devices in Core Mode



  xmodmap will only modify the Core Pointer. As there is only one Core
  pointer at a time, it makes no difference between the physical devices
  which may become the Core Pointer. For the moment, let us forget the
  whole XInput stuff and think of a left-hander who just wants to swap
  the left and right mouse buttons.  You would execute xmodmap -pp to
  look what the current assignment is. You should get the following
  table back:







  Physical        Button
  Button          Code
  1              1      # ( Left   Button )
  2              2      # ( Right  Button )
  3              3      # ( Middle Button )





  To swap the buttons, you do a xmodmap -e "pointer = 2 1 3" , and to
  get back, xmodmap -e "pointer = default" . This should work with every
  device with at least two buttons. Note that  the term "pointer = x x
  x" has to be quoted to prevent it from being changed by the shell.



  6.5.  Button Mapping with xinput  for Devices in Extension Mode



  Back to XInput now. If you use the gimp, you may want to change the
  button mapping for each device separately (may be you are happy with
  the mouse but want to swap the two side-switches of the pen). Frederic
  Lepied has written a utility called ``xinput'' for that.

  To swap the side-switches, you would do a xinput list to get a list of
  the devices and their current settings. Swapping is done with xinput
  set-button-map Pen1 1 3 2 where Pen1 is the Device to change.

  Starting with XFree 3.3.2 this works also with devices that are
  configured AlwaysCore in XF86Config.



  6.6.  xsetmode - changing absolute / relative mode




  With xsetmode you can change the mode of a device between absolute and
  relative.

  Example:
  xsetmode GraphireMouse ABSOLUTE .



  6.7.  xsetpointer - setting the default core device



  If you have none of your devices configured AlwaysCore and you want a
  device to become  the core-pointer, then xsetpointer must be used.

  Do a xsetpointer Devicename . The old core-device (usually the mouse)
  is not usable anymore and the one you specified should be active. For
  example I can make the graphire mouse the standard core device from
  within a running XFree.

  xsetpointer -l lists all devices and the modes they are in.





  6.8.  Keys


  Some devices have macro keys or pads on them, to which a scancode or
  string may be assigned. This works only for devices in extension mode
  and is therefore done in the application you want use the keys with.

  xinput -l gives information about the number of keys and things like
  the first scancode.



  6.9.  Utilities to use more than one tablet and for toggle support on
  / off



  I own myself 3 tablets of Wacom and use them on my notebook. Whenever
  no tablets are connected and I start X, I have to wait very long until
  the driver gives up. If xdm is used, this increases to multiple of
  that timeouts.

  I have written two utilities which should make live easier with that:


  o  The shell script sx for those who use startx.  sx uses the dialog
     tool to present a nice menu where the user can choose:

  o  one of up to 10 devices (tablet, joystick, ...)

  o  for notebooks, which display to use (internal or external display)

  o  which window-manager to use





  o  The small gtk-application xinput-chooser for those who use xdm.
     xinput-chooser presents the user a menu whenever the xdm login
     screen is shown, from which one of up to ten different
     configurations can be chosen.


  The concept behind this is that a XF86Config file is split in at least
  a XF86Config.bare file, which holds the information common to all
  configurations, and various snippets, each of them holding the special
  information for a particular configuration.

  The two utilities will then concat the parts back to a working
  configuration.


  You can get this packet from http://www.runkeledv.de/download , it is
  named xinput_chooser_sr.



  7.  Further Information / used documents




  gpm:
  gpm man page, gpm FAQ, source code file mice.c

  XInput:
  XInput HOWTO by Owen Taylor

  XFree and Wacom:
  XF86Config man page

  Frederic Lepied's site

  much, much, e-mails...

























































