Aiptek USB Tablet

Aiptek USB Tablet

I picked up one of these free thanks to RogerB who was getting rid of his. The challenge then was to get it working under Gentoo GNU/Linux. To be fair I didn't do anything for a good year or so, until I decided to have a clear out of crap. I was going to get rid of this having never used it but thought I'd check out first whether I can actually get it working. Turns out I can, and here's how.

This is basically my re-write of the Gentoo Wiki: Aiptek Tablet article, you could basically read that and achieve the same thing.

Kernel Configuration

You will need kernel version >2.6.23 when the driver was first incorporated. Make the following selections under make menuconfig

Device Drivers --->
    Input device support --->
        <*> Event interface
        [*] Tablets --->
             <M> Aiptek 6000U/8000U tablet support (USB)

Custom Udev Rules

You can optionally add the following udev rules to a custom configuration file /etc/udev/rules.d/85-tablet-driver.rules

# for Aiptek (vendor: 08ca) tablets
BUS=="usb", KERNEL=="event[0-9]*", SYSFS{idVendor}=="08ca", SYMLINK+="input/aiptek_event", OWNER="root", MODE="0666"
BUS=="usb", KERNEL=="mouse[0-9]*", SYSFS{idVendor}=="08ca", SYMLINK+="input/aiptek_mouse", OWNER="root", MODE="0666"

Xorg Drivers

You need the aiptek driver for Xorg. To install this cleanly, simply add the USE=inputdevicesaiptek to x11-base/xorg-server by adding the following line to /etc/portage/package.use and re-emerging x11-base/xorg-server…

 echo 'x11-base/xorg-server input_devices_aiptek' >> /etc/portage/package.use
 emerge -uDNav x11-base/xorg-server

Xorg configuration

Ensure your /etc/X11/xorg.conf contains the following lines…

Section "ServerLayout"
        Identifier     "X.org Configured"
        Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
        InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
        InputDevice     "Mouse0"        "CorePointer"
        InputDevice     "pen"           "AlwaysCore"
        InputDevice     "cursor"        "AlwaysCore"
        InputDevice     "eraser"        "AlwaysCore"
EndSection
 
# From http://aiptektablet.sourceforge.net/xserver.html
Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier      "pen"
        Driver          "aiptek"
        Option          "Device"        "/dev/input/aiptek_event"
        Option          "Type"          "stylus"
        Option          "Mode"          "absolute"
        Option          "Cursor"        "stylus"
        Option          "USB"           "on"
        Option          "KeepShape"     "on"
        Option          "debuglevel"    "20"
        Option          "zMin"          "0"
        Option          "zMax"          "512"
        Option          "PressCurve"    "0,5,95,100"
EndSection
 
Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier      "cursor"
        Driver          "aiptek"
        Option          "Device"        "/dev/input/aiptek_event"
        Option          "Type"          "cursor"
        Option          "Mode"          "absolute"
        Option          "Cursor"        "puck"
        Option          "USB"           "on"
        Option          "KeepShape"     "on"
        Option          "debuglevel"    "20"
        Option          "zMin"          "0"
        Option          "zMax"          "511"
EndSection
 
Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier      "eraser"
        Driver          "aiptek"
        Option          "Device"        "/dev/input/aiptek_event"
        Option          "Type"          "eraser"
        Option          "Mode"          "absolute"
        Option          "Cursor"        "stylus"
        Option          "USB"           "on"
        Option          "KeepShape"     "on"
        Option          "debuglevel"    "20"
        Option          "zMin"          "0"
        Option          "zMax"          "511"
EndSection

Software Configuration

Its possible to use the tablet under X for everday work, but its not so practical. The Pen/Tablet were designed for drawing work and fortunately the one application that you're most likely to use to do this under GNU/Linux, i.e. The GIMP, supports the device.

Under

Troubleshooting

On first tying this I found that Xorg wasn't happy if I rebooted (or indeed restart Xorg) without the tablet plugged in, it gave the following errors…

It seemed that Xorg was waiting for udev/evdev to create a valid device node. Since the tablet wasn't plugged in there was no node and Xorg crashed, which is unusual as it normally moves on quietly to the next thing.

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