# Wacom Serial Tablet?

## techiem2

I have an old Wacom Graphire Serial Tablet I pulled out the other day.

I would like to get it working so I don't have to buy a new one (assuming I can find the pen to this one...).

So far I haven't had any success.

I know the tablet still works, because I installed it in XP (hehe) and it worked fine.

But I can't get either of my gentoo installs to see it (one being on the same machine as the XP install).

I emerged linuxwacom.

Wacdump won't even see the tablet.

```

room root # wacdump /dev/ttyS0

WacomOpenTablet: Connection timed out

```

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

I'm stumped.

Mark II

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## buffalo

I never used a graphic tablet, but it seems to me that I have een something in the kernel config concerning Wacom tablet support. maybe you should enable it...

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## techiem2

I did.

Though I believe that option is actually for the USB tablets.

I even tried hooking up my USB to Serial adapter and hooking the tablet up to that, but just got the same result.

I'm thinking maybe I just need to go ahead and get a new USB model.

I can always give this one to one of my siblings who still use winders since it works fine there.

 :Smile: 

Mark II

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## techiem2

The only thing I can think of at this point is that it has something to do with the serial port handling since the tablet works fine in windows but will not respond at all in linux.

I've compiled every kernel module I could find that looked like it might have something to do with serial port handling, but nothing helped.

Any more ideas?

Thanks.

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## mamash

Hi,

I have probably the same device (i.e. the first Graphire ever) and the same behavior: wacdump doesn't work. The X-based tools like xidump, xsetwacom work, however. So basically, forget about kernel options, just follow emerge linuxwacom against xorg (built with SDK use flag). These are the relevant sections of my xorg.conf, which work:

```

Section "InputDevice"

    Driver      "wacom"

    Identifier  "cursor"

    Option      "Device"        "/dev/ttyS0"

    Option      "Type"          "cursor"

    Option      "Button1"       "1"

    Option      "Button2"       "3"

    Option      "Button3"       "2"

EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

    Driver      "wacom"

    Identifier  "stylus"

    Option      "Device"        "/dev/ttyS0"

    Option      "Type"          "stylus"

    Option      "Button1"       "1"

    Option      "Button2"       "3"

    Option      "Button3"       "2"

EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

    Driver      "wacom"

    Identifier  "eraser"

    Option      "Device"        "/dev/ttyS0"

    Option      "Type"          "eraser"

EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"

    InputDevice "cursor" "AlwaysCore"

    InputDevice "stylus" "AlwaysCore"

    InputDevice "eraser" "AlwaysCore"

    Option "AllowMouseOpenFail" "true"

(and other stuff...)

EndSection

```

I had to switch the buttons (i.e. those Button1, Button2... statements) because for some reason, the 2nd and 3rd buttons are swapped. I also discovered that my Xorg wouldn't start, if the Graphire was set up as the CorePointer (I don't have a second regular mouse), and Xorg wouldn't start without a CorePoint. So I just put in the AllowMouseOpenFail option, which will make Xorg look for a default mouse and yet continue when it fails.

Hope this helps.

There two other issues, which I'd be interested if you could confirm with your piece of Graphire: my up movement of the wheel generates three events instead of one (making pages scroll back three times more). And also the movement of the mouse device is picked up even a centimeter above the surface. Both of these are different from the behavior in Windows and annoy me much.

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## techiem2

I gave up on the serial tab since I couldn't find the pen.

I picked up a new USB one and it connected quite easily.

As to the other problems:

1.  For scrolling, my wheel is doing odd things.

Like the window looks like it's scrolling but doesn't.

But that's just from a quick test now.

I don't use the mouse since I have a nice wireless already.

2.  If by picked up you mean like drawing in gimp, I have that problem.

It's supposed to read as movement slightly above the surface so you can pick up the mouse slightly and move it around and then touch again to draw (I think.  This is the normal behavior in windows if I remember right.).

However, mine does not just move when off the tablet slightly.  It still registers as drawing, which it should NOT do.  I do not have this problem in windows.

Oddly, this does not seem to be a common problem.  I have tried recompiling gtk (both versions) and gimp and nothing worked for me.

Interestingly enough, when I compiled gtk by hand from the downloaded source and compiled the xinput test prog, it worked fine.

Which would seem to indicate either one of the patches or something else different when portage compiled it is the problem.

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## mamash

Ah, I was specifically interested in your issues with the serial one, because I couldn't find virtually anything anywhere about it. And I don't have the issues you have. My wheel scrolling works fine except for the fact that the UP movement always generates  3 events instead of one (it didn't in Windows), and the mouse movement (just movement) is registered even a centimeter above the surface, while in Windows the mouse had to be dead on surface to be actually regarded as "in range".

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## techiem2

Ah.

Maybe I'll pull out the serial tab again and try to hook it up to my laptop again.

If I can remember where I put the thing last....

 :Smile: 

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## elsenator

I've been trying to get my Serial Wacom Penpartnet tablet to work for ages now, but after emerging linuxwacom wacdump just sits there. No output whatsoever no matter what serial port i connect it to.

I also tried doing "cat /dev/ttyS0" and this generates no output whatsoever when i move the pen around on the tablet. Shouldn't there be some sort of output? I've also tried this with both ttyS0 and ttyS1 and also switching the ports physically. No result - just nothing!

I thought that maybe my serial ports haven't been enabled in the kernel, but i've enabled everything that even has the word serial support something in it. But they really do seem dead. Sadly i don't have any other serial based hardware i can test them with.

Any suggestions?

I'm running Gentoo-dev-source-r6

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## techiem2

I think that's what was happening to me too.

I never did figure out why it wouldn't register.

TechieM2

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## elsenator

 *techiem2 wrote:*   

> I think that's what was happening to me too.
> 
> I never did figure out why it wouldn't register.
> 
> TechieM2

 

Ok, so after recompiling my kernel about 8 times and messing around with my bios serial port config i gave up... I thought "this thing is just dead". I did however see one last thing to try. After messing around with wacdump for waaaay too long i decided to skip that step and go right for the x configuration. I added the needed segments as described in the official linuxwacom how-to and fired up x. And.... *drumroll* IT WORKS!!!! I just couldn't believe it! All this time i had been sitting here trying to make it register with wacdump, and all i had to do was to configure it for x! No need for wacdump to output anything whatsoever...

So, serial wacom users - dump wacdump and go for the configuration of your xorg.conf and you are up and running in no time. Damm this was a relief. No need to buy a new one *phew*

One thing is missing though. The pressure sensitivity is broken, so as of right now i can only use it as a pointer, since it won't click or draw anything. Anyone who knows how to solve that?

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