Today I hunkered down and blew $100 on a Wacom Bamboo tablet (Pen and Touch). I purchased it fully expecting to be returning it in a day or two because it just would not work at all with Linux. I’m happy to admit; I’m wrong!

The touch portion “works” but it’s very glitchy and hard to control. The pen on the other hand is really good; about as good as I would expect from a $100 Wacom tablet. My mother in law swears by her Tablet (top of the line 4-5 year old Wacom). This little Bamboo even spans my dual monitors with out any adjustments. It did take a bit to setup, but once it was going; it works great.

Initially I used this site to get things rolling. I ventured back to the good old Ubuntu forums for the specifics. In my case I specifically needed to know “HOW IN THE HELL TO MAKE IT LEFT HANDED”?! In the end; that was very easy to take care of, and things have been just peachy ever since. If I were to do it again; I may only purchase the Pen version; but knowing I have the touch side of things if I want to tweak them is kind of fun.

Here are one of my first sketches from the Wacom Bamboo Pen and Touch:

First Wacom Bamboo Sketch

This image was drawn using The Gimp with a pencil set to 3 with Pressure sensitivity set up in devices. I’ve been quickly falling in love with Inkscape, so I’m sure I’ll be pushing out more drawings using that application; it’s freakin’ awesome!

[edit]

Thought I better go through what I did and do with the Wacom Tablet now that the installation process is fresh again:

I got most of the rest of this at: UbuntuGeek
I put it down here in case that link ever goes dead.

tar -xf linuxwacom-0.8.8-8.tar.bz2 (your version may be newer).


cd linuxwacom-0.8.8-8/
./configure --enable-wacom
cd src/2.6.30/
make
sudo cp wacom.ko /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/input/tablet/
sudo rmmod wacom
sudo modprobe wacom


I put this script in my ~/.config directory to make my tablet left handed (you can leave out all the HALF commands if you one of those “RIGHT HANDED” people.


#!/bin/bash
xsetwacom set "Wacom BambooFun 2FG 4x5 Finger" rotate HALF
xsetwacom set "Wacom BambooFun 2FG 4x5 Finger pad" rotate HALF
xsetwacom set "Wacom BambooFun 2FG 4x5 Pen" rotate HALF
xsetwacom set "Wacom BambooFun 2FG 4x5 Pen eraser" rotate HALF
xsetwacom set "Wacom BambooFun 2FG 4x5 Pen" button1 1
xsetwacom set "Wacom BambooFun 2FG 4x5 Pen" button2 2
xsetwacom set "Wacom BambooFun 2FG 4x5 Pen" button3 3


The last thing you need to do is to add “wacom” to the /etc/modules file so you will not have to redo the modprobe each reboot.
[/edit]

I’m starting to think Google hopes all Linux users are actually Windows users that just don’t know better. I’ve been a Picasa fan boy for ages; but it isn’t with out some trepidation. I know that although Picasa runs well in Linux; it is truly a Windows app (as the .exe file extension explains). Google’s Chrome web browser seems to be in that particular boat as well.

When Picasa or Chrome are installed it brings with it WINE (Wine Is Not an Emulator). When you run either one of them they tend to keep their Windows 98′esk buttons, menus and borders until you go in and tell it to use system themes (not something I appreciate).

It irritates me when I start up Chrome and see what appears a box with Chrome running inside. In this window shot; my borders are not visible. Only what is inside my windows themed borders. Nope; I don’t like that.

As seen here:

Not so pretty, but it works well.

I’m not giving up on Google; after all I really do love my Nexus One running Android 2.2 now (as soon as Cyanogen get’s their next ROM out; I’ll move back to that).

[edit] Installed Cyanogen’s Alpha release of their Android ROM (6.0.0 A1); simply awesome! [/edit]

But inside Linux they seem to not want to compile for the OS; but run their application with in the constraints of an API layer or emulator.

[edit] Posted correction via reader: It seems Chrome is compiled for the kernel it runs with (Win, Mac & *nix). Awesome news, that means the UI may be able to be tweaked a little. I assume it uses WebKit, qt or gtk (need to look into that). I’ve been using it more the last week or so because of Adobe’s disagreement with Firefox/Ubuntu on this machine. [/edit]

Two cents deposited; thank you.