HOWTO: Install latest aiptektablet drivers from CVS

**luopio** · January 28th, 2006

Please see https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AiptekTablet for more up-to-date instructions

Changelog
Jan. 11 2009 - big red link to the official help page
Apr. 24 2007 - original howto replaced by bmcage's new version and luopio's fixes

1. Obtain development system
Enable universe, multiverse repositories in synaptic (in top menu: settings->repositories).
Open a terminal (applications->accessories->terminal) and enter the command:

Code:

sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-kernel-headers subversion linux-source

2. Kernel Aiptek module
We start by making the kernel driver.

Code:

mkdir aiptek
cd aiptek
svn co https://aiptektablet.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/aiptektablet/trunk/linux_kernel_drivers/2.6 aiptekkernel
cd aiptekkernel
make

Replace the current module with the new one we just compiled:

Code:

cp /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/usb/input/aiptek.ko aiptek.ko.old
sudo cp aiptek.ko /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/usb/input/

3. Xserver module
We start with adding the present defunct module, and then compile the new one, replacing the old with the result. In the aiptek directory:

Code:

cd ..
svn co https://aiptektablet.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/aiptektablet/trunk/xserver_input_driver aiptekxserver
cd aiptekxserver
sudo apt-get build-dep xserver-xorg-input-aiptek
apt-get source xserver-xorg-input-aiptek

The last command installed the source in the directory xserver-xorg-input-aiptek-1.0.1. We replace the files with the downloaded SVN files (I have used revision 190 which worked fine on Feisty):

Code:

cp xserver-xorg-input-aiptek-1.0.1/src/xf86Aiptek.h xserver-xorg-input-aiptek-1.0.1/src/xf86Aiptek.h.old
cp xserver-xorg-input-aiptek-1.0.1/src/xf86Aiptek.c xserver-xorg-input-aiptek-1.0.1/src/xf86Aiptek.c.old 
cp xf86Aiptek.c xf86Aiptek.h xserver-xorg-input-aiptek-1.0.1/src/
cd xserver-xorg-input-aiptek-1.0.1/
./configure --prefix=/usr
make
sudo make install

4. Find the Tablet, and make a Udev rule
Use gedit (or your favourite editor to create a new file)

Code:

sudo gedit /etc/udev/rules.d/66-aiptek.rules

Insert the following text there:

Code:

# udev rule for aiptek tablets

KERNEL=="event[0-9]*", SYSFS{vendor_id}=="0x08ca", SYMLINK+="input/aiptektablet"

Save the file and restart Udev:

Code:

sudo /etc/init.d/udev restart

Plugin your tablet and check that you have a link in /dev/input/aiptektablet

Code:

ls /dev/input/aiptektablet

5. Test the tablet
You can query the device with the following command:

Code:

udevinfo -a -p $(udevinfo -q path -n /dev/input/aiptektablet)

This will show you how the different parameters of your tablet are set.

6. Enable the pen in the Xserver
Now we enable the pen in the xserver. For this we need to edit our xorg.conf file. First, backup the old one:

Code:

cd /etc/X11/
sudo cp xorg.conf xorg.conf.no-pen

Now, edit the file xorg.conf with kate/gedit. The standard Ubuntu xorg comes with the wacom tablet enabled. You should delete the entries referring to the wacom tablet driver. Now, you add an InputDevice section:

Code:

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

You can find info on these settings on xfree86 or by typing the command 'man aiptek'. Now we need to make sure the mouse does not conflict with our hyperpen, so we change the mouse InputDevice Section:

Code:

 Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"

should be changed to

Code:

 Option "Device" "/dev/input/mouse0"

Furthermore, make sure the following option is present:

Code:

Option "CorePointer"

In some cases, the mouse is not on mouse0. Test this first with the command:

Code:

udevinfo -a -p $(udevinfo -q path -n /dev/input/mouse0)
udevinfo -a -p $(udevinfo -q path -n /dev/input/mouse1)
...

and select the correct mouse node for use in xorg.conf. In my case mouse1 returns among others: ATTRS{name}=="Logitech USB-PS/2 Optical Mouse", so I need to set /dev/input/mouse1.

Note that hotplug of another mouse will not work after this, as this mouse will be connected to another input. So, you need to change your xorg.conf again in that case and restart X.

Now we change the ServerLayout section to reflect our changes. In my case:

Code:

Section "ServerLayout"
 Identifier "Default Layout" 
 Screen "Default Screen" 0 0
 InputDevice "Generic Keyboard" "CoreKeyboard"
 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

Code:

InputDevice "cursor" "AlwaysCore"

line to

Code:

InputDevice "cursor" "CorePointer"

As a last step, we backup our changes:

Code:

sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.pen

Restart your X server and with a bit of luck, you can now use the tablet!

Erasor and Cursor
Is it usefull to add erasor and cursor to xorg? If so, what do they do and how do you activate them? Not clear to me.

7. Configuration
7.1. General
You can configure the tablet from the command line, or via a GUI called gaiptek.
Note that gaiptek is currently out of date and won't probably work with your tablet

For the command line method, read aiptek manual, section Programming the Tablet

To install gaiptek, go into your aiptek dir created above, and do the following:

Code:

svn co https://aiptektablet.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/aiptektablet/trunk/gaiptek gaiptek
cd gaiptek
sudo apt-get install libgtkmm-2.4-dev
./autogen.sh

This should already execute make, if not, run make separately. You can now run gaiptek via

Code:

cd src
./gaiptek

or install it system wide:

Code:

sudo make install
gaiptek

On my Feisty box, gaiptek gives an error that the driver is not found, and configuration is not possible. All help here is welcome. The xinput device pen is found, just no connection is made

You find a short gaiptek manual online.

7.2. Configuring the Function buttons at the top
Clicking the buttons at the top works, and they do F1->F12 in my case. Can this behaviour be changed?

9. Usefull programs
9.1. GIMP
If you want to use pressure-sensitivity in the Gimp image editor, start gimp, and select File -> Preferences -> Input Devices -> Configure Extended Input Devices.
Select device "pen" and set the Mode to "screen" (Mode "window" does not center the pointer icon on the pointer position in my case). 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. Works great.

Question: What does the keys tab mean in this configuration? Doesn't really work

9.2. Inkscape
The pen is also usefull in Inkscape. Again, go to File->Input Devices, and as in GIMP you can enable the pen.

9.3. Gsumi
A nice black/white drawing program with pressure curve. Install it on feisty via:

Code:

sudo apt-get install gsumi

For info, see the gsumi homepage

In my case the pressure is not really working: below 50 the pen draws, over 50 it doesn't?

Troubleshooting

The tablet is not at /dev/input/aiptektablet
If you are sure that you have saved the udev rule, restarted udev and plugged the tablet in with no success, then follow the instructions here to try to make it work.
Run the command:

Code:

lsusb

In my case this returns:

Code:

Bus 002 Device 002: ID 03f0:0024 Hewlett-Packard
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 08ca:0010 Aiptek International, Inc. Tablet
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 046d:c01d Logitech, Inc.
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 05e3:0606 Genesys Logic, Inc.
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

From this one can see that in my case the Vendor of the Aiptek tablet is 08ca, and the product id is 0010. With this we will make a udev rule so that the tablet is found always in a fixed place:

Code:

cd /etc/udev/rules.d/
sudo touch aiptek-tablet.rules
sudo kate aiptek-tablet.rules

Use gedit in stead of kate on Ubuntu. Now in kate, paste the following, using the correct vendor and product id as determined with the method above, and save the file:

Code:

# links /dev/input/aiptektablet to the correct /dev/input/event*
# without it, X will not be able to locate the tablet
#
# Run "lsusb" to find your idVendor and idProduct values.
# All aiptek-compatible tablets might need different values.
#
# For me, lsusb outputs:
# Bus 001 Device 005: ID 08ca:0010 Aiptek International, Inc. Tablet
#
KERNEL=="event[0-9]*", SYSFS{idVendor}=="08ca", SYSFS{idProduct}=="0010", SYMLINK+="input/aiptektablet"

Xorg won't start anymore
In case of an error, Xserver not starting, do the following: Press CTRL+ALT+F4 to open another tty, login, and use your original configuration

Code:

sudo cp xorg.conf.no-pen xorg.conf

Now, you can restart the x server and all should be as in the beginning.

You can investigate the error after restart by reading /var/log/Xorg.0.log.old, looking for the place where the aiptek pen is loaded.

Clicking with the pen
Clicking the buttons on the pen does not work in my case. However, with one tap of the pen (tap on the tablet, like you tap on a touchpad) a click is done. Eg curves in inkscape can be made by doing a tap, and at the end of curve a double tap.

Resources used for this howto:

aiptektablet-users Go to 2006-12-02, thread: The world according to Rene, where he lists how to make it work on Fedora FC6
This forum howto
Aiptek Tablets on Debian Linux

**luopio** · May 15th, 2006

By creating a simple udev-rule you can make sure that the aiptektablet is always tied to /dev/input/aiptek. Here's my rule:

Code:

~$ cat /etc/udev/rules.d/aiptektablet.rules
 KERNEL=="event*", SYSFS{manufacturer}="AIPTEK International Inc.", 
 NAME="input/aiptektablet", MODE="0644"

**also-rr** · August 9th, 2006

Has anyone installed this on 6.06? I can't get the kernel module to compile.

Installed headers, then the whole kernel source:

peu@elrsr-01:~/Downloads/Aiptek/aiptektablet/trunk/linux_kernel_drivers/2.6$ ls /usr/src/
linux-source-2.6.15 linux-source-2.6.15.tar.bz2
peu@elrsr-01:~/Downloads/Aiptek/aiptektablet/trunk/linux_kernel_drivers/2.6$ make KSRC=/usr/src/linux-source-2.6.15/
Cannot find kernel sources in /usr/src/linux-source-2.6.15/;
give the path to kernel sources with KSRC=<path> argument to make
make: *** [prereq_check] Error 1

**luopio** · August 10th, 2006

These directions were for Breezy, so they're a bit outdated. Also the current sources are in SVN, not in CVS. I changed the howto to reflect that, even though the rest won't work out-of-the-box.

You only need the headers. Installing the source & headers is useless, because the source contains the headers also.

I'm following the aiptektablet mailing list and I'll try out the latest drivers once they announce success (I'm hoping the new developers get the project to at least beta phase soon

). IF they work, I'll rewrite the howto.

**also-rr** · August 10th, 2006

Just headers isn't enough (at least, wasn't when I tried that first before grabbing the source, which I needed for something else anyway).

I'm also watching the mailing list every now and again, good to see someone else is as well

Haven't seen any build instructions on there (yet) though.

For anyone interested, it seems that Nisis tablets are also Aiptek underneath (link) which is good as they seem to be offloading them at the moment in the UK... now just need to get the dang things to work right

**Josh_b** · August 24th, 2006

So, does that mean that we can't use Aiptek tablets properly until the new drivers come out? If so, then I'm not too happy. I haven't been able to use my tablet (A Medion from Aldi, which is really an aiptek) on my Windows drove because of a conflict with service pack 2, and wonderful Windows that won't let you uninstall SPs (and I thought I could choose to not install SP2 on my new computer, but noooo, XP with no SP only recognises 120GB of my 300GB SATA. grrr)

So how long until the new drivers come out?

**luopio** · August 24th, 2006

John Barstow (one of the developers) has asked for a status update on which tablets are working. At the same time he said that he's been busy with other projects, but will get time "in the near future" for aiptek.

I guess that if you really want to try to get your tablet working you can download the latest stuff from SVN and try to compile it yourself. I don't know if these really work, but they're your best bet.

Or you can wait for John's release (which can take some time). Or you can start up a bounty for the release (I'll chip in a few €s too if you decide to start one

)

**casainho** · September 26th, 2006

Originally Posted by also-rr

Has anyone installed this on 6.06? I can't get the kernel module to compile.

Installed headers, then the whole kernel source:

peu@elrsr-01:~/Downloads/Aiptek/aiptektablet/trunk/linux_kernel_drivers/2.6$ ls /usr/src/
linux-source-2.6.15 linux-source-2.6.15.tar.bz2
peu@elrsr-01:~/Downloads/Aiptek/aiptektablet/trunk/linux_kernel_drivers/2.6$ make KSRC=/usr/src/linux-source-2.6.15/
Cannot find kernel sources in /usr/src/linux-source-2.6.15/;
give the path to kernel sources with KSRC=<path> argument to make
make: *** [prereq_check] Error 1

I was also having that error.. but I am now compiling the kernel.. and tried to compile again the aiptek kernel drivers and I am not geting that error

**pgatrick** · December 25th, 2006

Anyone messed with this at all lately? I've got one of these things that's just been laying around for years, I'd love to be able to actually use it. Tried compiling from SVN, but the xserver_input_driver part isn't working. Always get this:

Code:

Imakefile.c:39: error: Imake.tmpl: No such file or directory
imake: Exit code 1.
  Stop.

Also trieed installing from the repositories, no matter what I try it just doesn't seem to work.. It's recognized when it's plugged in and the appropriate kernel module loaded, but tit's still not actually working.. tail /var/log/Xorg.0.log:

Code:

Error reading Aiptek tablet: Success
Error reading Aiptek tablet: Resource temporarily unavailable
Error reading Aiptek tablet: Resource temporarily unavailable
Error reading Aiptek tablet: Success
Error reading Aiptek tablet: Interrupted system call
Error reading Aiptek tablet: Success
Error reading Aiptek tablet: Success
Error reading Aiptek tablet: Success
Error reading Aiptek tablet: Resource temporarily unavailable
Error reading Aiptek tablet: Resource temporarily unavailable

Anyone had any luck with one of these things?

Thought I might add, I'm on edgy 64 bit with kernel 2.6.17 and Xorg 7.1.1

**luopio** · December 26th, 2006

I tried the code in SVN a few months back and I had a similar problem: the kernel module compiles and runs fine, but the Xorg module won't work. And AFAIK Imake is the build system that was used previously on Xorg, but now it's using GNU autotools, so the SVN code has not been updated to that.

However, the mailing list seems to be a bit more alive these days and something about having "everything working" by xorg 7.3 was mentioned.

As soon as any of the developers calls for testing I'll try and compile the drivers and update the HowTo.

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