I just switched from XP to Mint 17. Krita works so much better on Mint with just overall superior performance.
Problem:
I can't figure out how to map the keys on the side of the tablet. On XP there was a handy UI that came with the tablet that made it easy to configure these things but on Linux (after many hours of searching) I found that you have to do some swanky terminal stuff. I have searched the ubuntu and Mint forums with no luck except a general direction pointing towards the terminal with the command xsetwacom... -No idea what it is! I was just wondering if there was a way around it or even a tutorial for newbs. Otherwise i'm back on XP and stuck on Krita 2.8.0

I'm on Mint 17 cinnamon 64-bit
Wacom BambooPT 2FG 4x5

I just want to map the four buttons on the side of the tablet and turn off touch capability. Otherwise works fine with pressure sensitivity.The pen can be customized (though limited choice) via system settings, graphics tablet.

Any help is greatly appreciated and sorry for jacking the forum with an unrelated issue but this stuff is really giving me a headache

Does Mint include Gnome's tablet configuration utility in its system settings? That's currently the most user-friendly way of setting up a Wacom tablet on Linux. The only thing is, it's a Gnome 3 thing, and I'm not sure whether or which Mint gnome-based desktop has it...

There is a tablet configuration utility in the system settings but the only configurable buttons are the ones on the pen

hey! Take it easy. first time in linux can be a bit confusing.

For the best support for wacom and utilities I've heard Gnome 3 has the best GUI tools for calibration and best support. Quoting deevad "…Gnome 3 has nice features of color-calibration and tablet control panel." from here http://www.davidrevoy.com/article218/guide-my-hardware-and-software-for-digital-painting

Other desktop environments do have tablet control panels, but most have missing bits.

As for "xsetwacom" tool: It is a text mode application to configure tablet preferences. To use it you need to open the terminal application. It can be named in many ways, but it usually has "terminal" in the application name. Inside "terminal" application you will see a text prompt. In the text prompt you can call any program/application (Try typing 'krita' and then hit intro). One of those applications is xsetwacom, and it was many options to activate or de-activate the different wacom options. You can find more indepth information here http://linuxwacom.sourceforge.net/index_old.php/howto/xsetwacom It will look completely alien to you, but once you get that the terminal runs commands and xsetwacom is a command for modifying tablet preferences, it will all make sense.

If you don't want to fiddle with the terminal for such a configuration, I recommend switching to any Gnome based distro, like Ubuntu GNOME http://ubuntugnome.org/, or Windows 8 before going back to XP.

The KDE module for configuring tablets is pretty complete, it lets you configure basically anything you can configure through xsetwacom, graphically configure the active region, assign arbitrary actions and hotkeys to all the buttons on the stylus and the tablet itself, etc.

http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/21559589/tablet.png
http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/21559589/tablet2.png
http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/21559589/tablet3.png
http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/21559589/tablet4.png

It also allows you to have different profiles with different configurations that you can switch between, depending on which program you're interacting with or which tablet you're using right now. Can't say I've ever found anything to be amiss.

I don't know if the version of the utility that Mint comes with is as recent, these might be newer features. I think the build I'm running is about 6 months old.

Well, yes -- but the problem is that the wacom kcm doesn't work with a lot of tablet types, and even so, there are quite a few issues -- I've never been able to use it to calibrate my intuos3, for instance. I've tried to figure out how to fix it, but I'm just too busy to really dig in.

Thanks guys for your help, I will try KDE and UbuntuGnome and if that doesn't work, dive into the terminal with xsetwacon - thanks ghevan for the linuxwacom page just the thing i was looking for.

And I won't be going back to XP even if I can't solve this problem because I accidently sat on and broke the XP install disk!! Maybe fate...

Oh, and I just saw Joerg pushing updates into git for a new release of the KDE wacom kcm!

Seems like I have some terminal fun to look forward to...

Tried Opensuse 3.1 KDE liveCD but the screen froze! I tried Kubuntu couple of years ago and the screen froze back then - I'm guessing KDE isn't agreeable with my graphics card (Nvidia GeForce 7900 GS). Also tried the Ubuntu Gnone 14.04 from the LiveCD but the tablet control panel is the same as the Mint 14.04 Cinnamon i'm running.

Anyway thanks for your help guys.

In regards to KDE "freezing" this may be due to Nouveau incompatibilities - you might need to use the proprietary Nvidia driver with your card. It may also be worthwhile to try disabling compositing under KDE.

I thought it must be a driver issue but i'm unable to change drivers as the system boots into what seems to be a permanant freeze (GUI), I waited around 15 mins trying to open/activate some menu - but there was nothing to point to just the opensuse wallpaper and a moveable mouse pointer. When I tried Kubuntu 2 years back, menu items were there but unresponsive.

bmarple wrote:I thought it must be a driver issue but i'm unable to change drivers as the system boots into what seems to be a permanant freeze (GUI), I waited around 15 mins trying to open/activate some menu - but there was nothing to point to just the opensuse wallpaper and a moveable mouse pointer. When I tried Kubuntu 2 years back, menu items were there but unresponsive.

I have similar difficulties with Mint_17 'Quiana' Cinnamon 64 running on an AMD mobo. KDE, when I tried it, did not seem to like my external optical drive but Mint_ does. If you get the xsetwacom thing to work, please post how. My tablet is a Wacom CTH-480 and the 'express keys' do not work, except that the upper-left one on the front brings up the 'color picker'. My online search recently shows that others say there are less options under Ubuntu and that buttons can not be mapped to a mouse button, only to a keystroke. For me, this is a very minor problem. I have the apparent freezing problem with Krita_2.8.1 in Mint_17 but the solution, for me, was to wait longer than twenty minutes. At about thirty-five to fifty minutes Mint resets itself and the next time it is started after a shutdown it is *very* fast and reliable. I have a similar problem when I click too fast before letting the previous operation finish. I believe my problem is hardware-related: no GPU card on the AMD M5A78LM mobo.

So I got Kubuntu working on my machine - between freezes, I accidently stumbled into system settings and was able to turn off desktop effects and that just 'defrosted' the whole GUI. I must say KDE's tablet configurability is perfect - exactly the sameoptions that are supplied by Wacom for windows! So thanks to Amadiro for suggesting KDE.