Wacom Drivers and Broken Xorg

[booman]

I got a Wacom Intuos art tablet for Christmas. I finally pulled it out and tried it in Linux. I knew that if it didn't work, there are some drivers out there that will.

Plugged it in and nothing...
Ok, well lets search Package Installer...
I found libwacom 0.8 drivers that are already installed, but for some reason they aren't working.

So I try to research newer drivers and find some version 0.22 deb installers. I download them install them without any errors and still nothing. So I figured, maybe a reboot will fix it.

Nope

After a reboot I can't login to Mint 17.3 any longer. I get to the login screen, but after entering my password the screen goes black for about 4 seconds and then right back to the login screen. I really messed something up, but don't know what it is. After using TTY shell to uninstall the new drivers and re-install the old drivers... still nothing. Back to research again....

Maybe its Xorg my X server that is crashing?

Turns out wacom drivers interact with X server like a mouse and the installers configure something that can affect the way X runs. But I don't know how to check logs or even configure xorg.conf (not to mention it doesn't exit in /etc/x11 anymore for Mint)

Steps taken - Mint already has installed libwacom_0.8-1

1. Installed Driver 22
2. installed via snypatics
   libwacom-dev
3. Installed via sudo apt-get
   libwacom2_0.22-1.deb
   libwacom-common_0.22-1.deb
4. Restarted
5. No X Server
6. Uninstalled via TTY
   libwacom2_0.22-1.deb
   libwacom-common_0.22-1.deb
7. Reinstalled
   libwacom2_0.81.deb
   libwacom-common_0.8-1.deb

I grow weary and decide to go ahead and install Mint 18 cause I already have it on a flash drive. I decide to NOT format the existing drive and just install Mint 18 over Mint 17.3

This totally works and my /home/booman still exists with all my games and configurations. Yay! Wish I had more patience to fix what was wrong, but I needed some real-time assistance.

Now the question is... Should I try the Wacom tablet in Mint 18?

 

[Daerandin]

I have no experience with wacom tablets myself, but a little bit of googling indicates that the newer/newest models do not have support in the kernel as of yet. So depending on how new your model is, you may need to wait until you can use it.

One thing you can try is to ensure you are using the newest kernel available. I have Mint installed on my mom's laptop, and I think I recall that Mint had the option to select between different kernel versions. You may want to avoid the 4.9 kernels as some people have reported issues with it. Arch has yet to move it out of the testing repositories because of issues. I am currently on 4.9.3 with no issues, but 4.8.xx might be a safer choice.

I don't think you need to install any of those packages you were experimenting with. According to the brief googling I've been doing, you should only need xf86-input-wacom so I suggest you look for that package instead. I think you should boot up with the tablet connected after having installed that package. You can then run the command:

xsetwacom --list devices

which should list your device if it is supported by the kernel you are using.

 

[booman]

I read the same thing myself. The Intuos Art is probably a newer model, so I'll have to wait or upgrade the Kernel. Mint Updater does show new kernels available, so I am able to update when I want to.

Thanks for the tips, I'll definitely install the recommended packages, reboot and then plug in the device.

 

[booman]

One strange symptom I noticed this morning is, when I brought my Mint 18 out of sleep and entered my password, it went right back to sleep. Tried it again and still went back to sleep. I had to restart the entire computer.

Where could I look for sleep settings to see if there are some strange settings for logging in?

 

[booman]

After upgrading to Mint 18 my Wacom tablet works perfectly out-of-the-box!