I recently bought a Trust 400-V2 wireless tablet, and I spend quite a bit of time getting it to work properly on my Debian Linux system. Here's how I finally got it all working correctly.
Getting the drivers
The Trust tablet apparently is a rebranded Aiptek 8000U. Neither Trust nor Aiptek support linux, but there is a sourceforge project with GPL drivers at http://aiptektablet.sourceforge.net/.
Get the "Aiptek unified package" from http://sourceforge.net/projects/aiptektablet.
There are 3 parts to the package; a kernel module, an X server module, and a GUI application for configuring the kernel module. I couldn't get all the dependencies for compiling the GUI app, so I do without it.
Compiling the kernel module
Make sure you've got your kernel source thats correctly configured for your system. If you've never done this before, check out Creating custom kernels with Debian's kernel-package system by Keven McKinley.
I'm assuming you've got /usr/src/linux as a symlink to
your kernel source tree. I used the debian package
kernel-source-2.6.11 as the base.
There is a version of the aiptek kernel module in my debian
kernel-source, but it's old and buggy. I recommend using the
kernel module from the Aiptek unified package or the SVN repository
instead of the one in the kernel tree *: untar the package and
copy unified_package/src/linux_kernel_module/2.6/aiptek.c to
/usr/src/linux/drivers/usb/input/aiptek.c.
* Update for recent kernels (2006-08-13)
I noticed that in kernel version 2.6.17 (probably since 2.6.15) the unified package driver does not compile anymore. Using the HEAD version (v2.0, 2006-Apr-18) of the driver from the svn repository fixed the problem. View the latest changes to aiptek.c or download the latest aiptek.c file directly.
Now setup you kernel configuration. Go to /usr/src/linux, make
menuconfig and go to Device drivers -> USB Support.
Switch on "Support for Host-side USB", "USB Human Interface Device (full HID) support", "HID input layer support" and set "Aiptek 6000U/8000U tablet support" to "M" (module). Now compile the kernel package and install it. Reboot.
Hotplug system
The following is needed if you have hotplug instead of
udev installed. Udev is the default for newer kernels. You
should probably use it instead of hotplug.
The kernel module should be loaded automatically if you have the hotplug system running, but you need to set up some symlinks when that is done. Also on my system the mouse buttons are set up wrong in the default configuration, so I wanted to switch them.
To do all this, I created the following script as
/etc/hotplug/usb/aiptek:
#!/bin/sh
#
# configure & setup aiptek usb tablets
#
# AUTHOR: Joost Diepenmaat - joost@zeekat.nl
#
# CHANGES:
# 2005-05-16:
# Removed module reloading code - caused page fault
# while booting
#
# 2005-05-10:
# Moved from init.d script to hotplug script
#
# 2005-04-24:
# Better detection of tablet's /sys/bus/usb location
# Doesnt try to unload kernel module if there isn't one loaded
#
# 2005-04-21:
# Initial version
#
. /etc/hotplug/hotplug.functions
if [[ "$ACTION" != "add" ]]; then
exit 0;
fi
AIPDIR=`echo $DEVPATH|grep -o '[^\/]*$'`
if [[ "$AIPDIR" == "" ]]; then
mesg "Can't find aiptek tablet /sys entry"
exit 1;
fi
AIPDIR="/sys/bus/usb/drivers/aiptek/$AIPDIR"
INPUT_PATH=`cat $AIPDIR/input_path`
if [[ ("$INPUT_PATH" == "") || ("$INPUT_PATH" == "/dev/input/") ]]; then
mesg "input_path is empty: try replugging the tablet"
exit 0
fi
mesg "Linking /dev/input/aiptektablet to $INPUT_PATH"
if [[ -L /dev/input/aiptektablet ]]; then
rm -f /dev/input/aiptektablet
fi
ln -s $INPUT_PATH /dev/input/aiptektablet
mesg "Configuring tablet"
# correct middle and right buttons
#echo "middle" >$AIPDIR/mouse_right
#echo "right" >$AIPDIR/mouse_middle
echo "execute" >$AIPDIR/execute
To make sure that runs when you insert the tablet, I copied the aiptek
lines from /lib/modules/*kernel-version*/modules.usbmap to
/etc/hotplug/usb/aiptek.usermap:
aiptek 0x0003 0x08ca 0x0001 0x0000 0x0000 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x0
aiptek 0x0003 0x08ca 0x0010 0x0000 0x0000 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x0
aiptek 0x0003 0x08ca 0x0020 0x0000 0x0000 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x0
aiptek 0x0003 0x08ca 0x0021 0x0000 0x0000 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x0
aiptek 0x0003 0x08ca 0x0022 0x0000 0x0000 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x0
aiptek 0x0003 0x08ca 0x0023 0x0000 0x0000 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x0
aiptek 0x0003 0x08ca 0x0024 0x0000 0x0000 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x0
This will test the module, reload it if necessary, install a symlink
in /dev/input/aiptek-tablet to the correct input event, and
reset the tablet. After that, if you've got gpm running, you can use the
mouse and pen in console mode.
The script reloads the module if the
/sys/bus/usb/drivers/aiptek/*/input_path virtual file is
empty, because that's the only way I could find to figure out how to get
at the correct information for installing the
/dev/input/aiptek-tablet symlink.
This is pretty annoying hack, and the udev option below works a lot better.
Udev rule
If you have udev installed, create new rules file as
/etc/udev/rules.d/aiptek-tablet.rules:
# links /dev/input/aiptektablet to the correct /dev/input/event*
# without it, X will not be able to locate the tablet
#
# The idVendor and idProduct values work for my Trust V2 tablet.
# Other aiptek-compatible tablets might need different values.
#
# You can run "lsusb" to see the ids for currently plugged in devices.
#
KERNEL=="event[0-9]*", SYSFS{idVendor}=="08ca", SYSFS{idProduct}=="0021", SYMLINK+="input/aiptektablet"
Installing X modules
First, see if you have the XFree86 or Xorg server. Debian is moving from XFree86 to Xorg, but I found getting the Xorg drivers to work a bit more hassle.
Installing the XFree86 module
Debian doesn't have the aiptek X server module in their package list,
so I copied it from the unified
package. cp unified_package/prebuilt/2.6/aiptek_drv.o
/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/input/aiptek_drv.o
I don't know if the unified package X driver works with the v2.0 kernel driver. You should probably use both X and kernel driver from the unified package if at all possible.
Installing the Xorg module via apt-get
If you have the newer Xorg X server, debian provides an aiptek input
driver in the "xserver-xorg-input-aiptek" package. If you're lucky,
apt-get install xserver-xorg-input-aiptek will install the
driver for you.
I couldn't get this input driver to work with the v2.0 kernel driver from the aitektablet site, so I compiled a new one myself.
Building your own Xorg module
Dependencies
You'll need some sort of working C compiler environment plus at least
the following packages (install via apt-get [package
names]): subversion and
xserver-xorg-dev.
Get the sources
Get the latest sources from the SVN repository and run xmkmf:
> svn co https://svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/aiptektablet/trunk/
> cd trunk/xserver_input_driver
> xmkmf
This will create a Makefile that is slightly broken for
Xorg. You'll need to edit it.
Open Makefile with your favorite editor, find the line
starting with INCLUDES = and append
-I/usr/include/xorg -I/usr/include/X11. In my case, the
final line (#1081) looked like this:
INCLUDES = -I. -I$(XF86COMSRC) -I$(XF86SRC)/loader
-I$(XF86OSSRC) -I$(SERVERSRC)/include -I$(SERVERSRC)/mi -I$(XINCLUDESRC)
-I$(EXTINCSRC) -I/usr/include/xorg -I/usr/include/X11
Then run make in the same directory. If all is well, you
now have a aiptek_drv.so file. Copy it to the right location
(Makefile doesn't know the right location, so make install
won't work right):
> cp aiptek_drv.so
/usr/lib/xorg/modules/input/aiptek_drv.so
And you're done. Now configure the X server.
Configuring X windows
Below are some changes to the X server configuration. Note that the
name of your X config file is dependent on your X server type. If you
have XFree86 it's called /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 or
/etc/X11/XF86Config. If you're running Xorg, it's
/etc/X11/xorg.conf.
Standard mouse
The Aiptek X driver is very picky about the name of your mouse device.
If you've got this far, you should have a couple of mouse* entries in
/dev/input. Find out which is the correct one for you. A
simple way of testing is to do cat /dev/input/mouse0 and
move the mouse to see if you get any output (binary garbage). My mouse is
at /dev/input/mouse0. Do not use
/dev/input/mice! Find the InputDevice entry in the
X config file and make sure the "Device" entry is configured to use that
device. Mine looks like this:
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver "mouse"
Option "CorePointer"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mouse0"
Option "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection
Tablet entries
Now set up the entries for the tablet. Add the folowing to your X config file:
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "pen"
Driver "aiptek"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/aiptektablet"
Option "Type" "stylus"
Option "Mode" "absolute"
Option "Cursor" "stylus"
Option "Mode" "absolute"
Option "PressCurve" "0,5,95,100"
Option "zMin" "0"
Option "zMax" "512"
Option "ZThreshold" "0"
Option "USB" "on"
Option "KeepShape" "on"
Option "debuglevel" "0"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "cursor"
Driver "aiptek"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/aiptektablet"
Option "Type" "cursor"
Option "Mode" "absolute"
Option "Cursor" "puck"
Option "Mode" "absolute"
Option "PressCurve" "0,5,95,100"
Option "KeepShape" "on"
Option "zMin" "0"
Option "zMax" "512"
Option "ZThreshold" "0"
Option "USB" "on"
Option "debuglevel" "0"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "eraser"
Driver "aiptek"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/aiptektablet"
Option "Type" "eraser"
Option "Mode" "absolute"
Option "Cursor" "stylus"
Option "Mode" "absolute"
Option "PressCurve" "0,5,95,100"
Option "zMin" "0"
Option "zMax" "512"
Option "ZThreshold" "0"
Option "USB" "on"
Option "KeepShape" "on"
Option "debuglevel" "0"
EndSection
You can find information on these options in the AIPTEK(4) manual page. Then find the ServerLayout entry and add the tablet devices. Mine looks like this:
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen "Default Screen"
InputDevice "Generic Keyboard"
# this is the entry for the standard mouse
InputDevice "Configured Mouse" "CorePointer"
# the following are entries for the tablet
InputDevice "pen" "AlwaysCore"
InputDevice "cursor" "AlwaysCore"
InputDevice "eraser" "AlwaysCore"
EndSection
If you don't have a standard mouse, or you don't care about it, remove its entry and change the
InputDevice "cursor" "AlwaysCore"
line to
InputDevice "cursor" "CorePointer"
Restart your X server and with a bit of luck, you can now use the tablet!
Note that with this configuration, the tablet needs to be plugged in and configured or X won't start. Also, if you remove and re-insert the tablet, you'll need to restart X.
Configuring the GIMP
If you want to use pressure-sensitivity in the Gimp image editor, start gimp, and select to File -> Preferences -> Input Devices -> Configure Extended Input Devices. Select device "pen" and set the Mode to "screen". Save and close the configuration windows.
To test: open a new image, use the pen to draw with the brush tool. You can set the pressure effect with the "pressure sensitivity" options.
$Id: content.html,v 1.9 2007-10-31 12:48:02 joost Exp $