[ubuntu-x] Fwd: Wacom tablets, TabletPC and Xorg support for Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty)

[Alberto Milone]

On Tuesday 11 November 2008 21:50:59 you wrote:
> Now, for a summary of the situation:
>
> - Intrepid :
>
> The impression was that the xorg.conf wacom configuration would conflict
> with HAL fdi configuration. They don't. It was probably a mistake, the
> wacom lines could have been present in xorg.conf and commented out (for
> the sake of KDE users I believe), and users would have edited their
> xorg.conf like before (no need for .fdi, we could have waited for the
> solution to mature). Not good, but they're ending up having to edit it
> in Intrepid anyway.
>
> We could even have kept the .fdi, the xorg.conf configuration would have
> been ok if the tablet was plugged at boot, while when hotplugging the
> tablet would have been picked up by HAL (only stylus working). TabletPC
> would have been perfect (except for the bug in U's 0.8.1.4 drivers for
> some).
>
> - Jaunty:
>
> LWP 0.8.2 stable drivers will ship soon, they will end up in Jaunty
> since there's no point keeping with an older beta. They're a strong
> option if we go for the xorg.conf method. Lenny will most probably
> switch from 0.7.9.3 to 0.8.2 (but we haven't synced them with testing in
> ages, we get everything from unstable)
>
> 0.8.3.X will follow, beta drivers but they will support having multiple
> devices with the .fdi method. They will still support xorg.conf method,
> but using the fdi we'll get input/hotplug, a safer method for our
> userbase with the fdi (you can't hose X that way, while everybody and
> their dog can hose X with a single character at the bad place). We're
> also used to shipping beta drivers in Ubuntu, so there'll be nothing new.

While it would be nice if we the drivers supported multiple devices with input 
hotplug they might not be released in time for Jaunty. For this reason I 
believe that developing something that uses the xorg.conf instead of fdi files 
would be more suitable for inclusion in Jaunty (and could be backported to 
Intrepid).


> Any work on that tool isn't going to be wasted, for the sole reason that
> the Gnome desktop has nothing planned for that (they've got keyboard
> properties, mouse properties, but nothing for Tablets or AFAIK
> joysticks). Gnome might get aboard actually, the desktop needs it. KDE I
> don't know, but I believe KDE users still have to set their xorg.conf
> manually, so they also need this tool.
> Enabling the tablet and setting device properties are done in the fdi
> file (or xorg.conf). Even in the highly unlikely situation that Xorg
> starts -selling popcorn- autodetecting and setting up tablets and
> TabletPC properly, the desktop will still need to ship with an UI for
> the tablet devices properties. For TabletPC and Cintiq, calibration is
> mandatory, and we also need an UI for the ExpressKeys.
>

Once the GTK ui is ready (if well designed) it should be trivial to write a 
KDE ui.

I could work on this but I don't know when, since I'm focussing on other 
things.

This is definitely something worth discussing at the UDS.

Regards,

Alberto