Yay! my new graphics tablet now works!
After some heavy duty voodoo I was finally able to follow the instructions of the Linux Wacom Project, and get the driver for the tablet working. I still have to figure out how I can get the pressure sensitivity settings working in such a way that it translates well into GIMP, but testing the raw data that comes from the tablet shows that changes in the pressure are recorded, so it's just a matter of fiddling with some more settings (I hope). But the driver itself seems to work as it should.
Seriously though, I haven't felt that much like a Linux newbie since I had to figure out to recompile my kernel way back a couple of years ago, when something or other in my hardware configuration wasn't supported in the then standard kernel of my distro (I forgot what it was) or something like that (kernel boot options were involved too), and my computer wouldn't start for days and I had to go through an ordeal of minimalist rescue systems and arcane kernel boot options and lost a couple of days of my life, coming this close >-< to giving up and switching back to windows.
This graphics tablet thing of course wasn't nearly as bad, the driver just wouldn't compile for some reason, no matter what development packages I installed, so I updated my linux version (well I reinstalled it, because updating killed for some reason my system's ability to recognize a mouse, and after a day I had still not figured out what went wrong, so I just backed up my data and installed from scratch), then still got an error, because for some reason it had problems compiling the kernel modules, then with the help of google figured out the incomprehensible voodoo I had to do to prepare my kernel sources for compiling modules (make cloneconfig && make prepare in /usr/src/linux), then realized that the next error that the X11 SDK wasn't installed (which it was, that was one of the reasons for updating my Linux in the first place as I couldn't find that RPM for the older version) could be fixed by installing the X sources in addition to the mere devel packages I dad tried initially. Then after I had the sources I had to fiddle with some paths because it still wouldn't find all .h files during compiling.
However the best part is, in the next section the How-To tells me that I don't need this X-Windows stuff because they included precompiled X-drivers for the standard X versions, precisely because building them requires more technical knowledge (see my woes with the X sources), so regular users only need to build the kernel module driver not the X driver, whereas I had stupidly figured I ought to fix the big warning the configure script gave me (the lesson of this is of course: RTFM completely before following the instructions section by section). Argh. Here you can laugh at me needlessly wasting several hours of my life. Well, I guess if I ever need to compile X drivers for some reason I guess I have a headstart now.
But! Now it works as it should, at least if I can figure out the pressure settings, which will have to wait, as I now need to mollify my rats with some treats. Right now they sitting near the bars of their cage, glaring at me because I haven't let them out and played with them tonight, but spent the whole time with the computer, and couldn't properly supervise the supreme destructive power they sometimes like to inflict on cables, wallpapers, or anything else within reach of their teeth.
Seriously though, I haven't felt that much like a Linux newbie since I had to figure out to recompile my kernel way back a couple of years ago, when something or other in my hardware configuration wasn't supported in the then standard kernel of my distro (I forgot what it was) or something like that (kernel boot options were involved too), and my computer wouldn't start for days and I had to go through an ordeal of minimalist rescue systems and arcane kernel boot options and lost a couple of days of my life, coming this close >-< to giving up and switching back to windows.
This graphics tablet thing of course wasn't nearly as bad, the driver just wouldn't compile for some reason, no matter what development packages I installed, so I updated my linux version (well I reinstalled it, because updating killed for some reason my system's ability to recognize a mouse, and after a day I had still not figured out what went wrong, so I just backed up my data and installed from scratch), then still got an error, because for some reason it had problems compiling the kernel modules, then with the help of google figured out the incomprehensible voodoo I had to do to prepare my kernel sources for compiling modules (make cloneconfig && make prepare in /usr/src/linux), then realized that the next error that the X11 SDK wasn't installed (which it was, that was one of the reasons for updating my Linux in the first place as I couldn't find that RPM for the older version) could be fixed by installing the X sources in addition to the mere devel packages I dad tried initially. Then after I had the sources I had to fiddle with some paths because it still wouldn't find all .h files during compiling.
However the best part is, in the next section the How-To tells me that I don't need this X-Windows stuff because they included precompiled X-drivers for the standard X versions, precisely because building them requires more technical knowledge (see my woes with the X sources), so regular users only need to build the kernel module driver not the X driver, whereas I had stupidly figured I ought to fix the big warning the configure script gave me (the lesson of this is of course: RTFM completely before following the instructions section by section). Argh. Here you can laugh at me needlessly wasting several hours of my life. Well, I guess if I ever need to compile X drivers for some reason I guess I have a headstart now.
But! Now it works as it should, at least if I can figure out the pressure settings, which will have to wait, as I now need to mollify my rats with some treats. Right now they sitting near the bars of their cage, glaring at me because I haven't let them out and played with them tonight, but spent the whole time with the computer, and couldn't properly supervise the supreme destructive power they sometimes like to inflict on cables, wallpapers, or anything else within reach of their teeth.