I discovered one problem today – the aiptek driver loaded even though it couldn't talk to the evdev driver. I didn't have that module built for my particular kernel. So I went into the 2.6.11 source tree under drivers/input and ran

make -C /usr/src/linux SUBDIRS=$PWD modules

where /usr/src/linux symlinked to the real location of the sources. This didn't work the first time because the config file didn't have evdev configured. I ran make gconfig, set the evdev to a loadable module (instead of compiled into the kernel) and then reran the modules make command. That build the driver as a module. I copied into the correct directory under /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/usb/input and then ran depmod. Then modprobe aiptek picked up both the aiptek and evdev modules. Problem solved.

But that only got me as far as the tablet working when I push *real hard* with the stylus. I also can't set any of the configurable items under /sys/bus/usb/drivers/aiptek/5-2:1.0 (where that last directory is the USB device info). I can read them, but I can't write them. They have write permissions and I've even tried writing as the root user. No go. I'm not sure what to do next. The tablet works a little, but it's very hard to get it to recognize the stylus without pressing hard. Sometimes it works a little better if I start by pressing in one of the corners of the tablet and dragging to where I want.

A related problem is that when I started gimp I have to press so hard that inside a canvas window it causes the menu to pop up. Sometimes I can draw, but usually I get one dot and then the menu pops up. It's very inconsistant. This looks like configuration issues – setting the pressure sensitivity or maybe the mapping of the stylus pen and upper/lower buttons to the right thing. The biggest issues seems to be that I can't write to the config files under /sys.

I joined the mailing list today. I'll try posting to it tomorrow for help. It might help if I tell them I'm trying to write an article about using this tablet with GIMP. Then again, maybe it won't.