I’m considering purchasing myself a Graphics Tablet for use in Gimp etc for editing photos especially for doing fine masking / retouching using a “pen” rather than a mouse.
Umpteen years ago I had a Wacom Graphire 2 Tablet. I may still have it in my “Old Computer Parts” box up the loft, but I’m unsure whether it still works, or is actually compatible with modern linux distros.
I don’t need a “fancy” Graphics Tablet with built in display screen.
Any recommendations on what Graphics Tablets are generally Linux compatible? I know Linux Mint Cinnamon is supposed to detect Wacom tablets in the “Graphics Tablet” settings dialogue. Whether cheaper “off brand” Graphics Tablets would work is another question.
Linux usually does not drop support for old hardware. My old Wacom Bamboo worked just give when I last tried it. If you can find yours, plugging it in and trying it should not take much time.
I think pretty much any newish wacom should be ok, they might all be called “intuos” nowadays but then the fancy ones are “intuos pro”, even the basic ones have at least 1024 levels of sensitivity which is what my fancy intuous had in 1998
I think I’ve run into problems with a very new one not working on certain windows pc’s but the current one is mostly fine, I had two or 3 new old stock graphires after I sold the a4 one in about 2005 then got a used one on ebay which looked like it had been dunked in coffee, the pen anyway, I dropped it several times a week but it carried on working for several years
the model I have now has some decent strain relief on the USB cable, even sliding off the desk and hanging from the lead seems to be fine, it has a large extra plug of plastic around the usb connector
I tried another brand that needed a battery in the pen, it wasn’t much fun
Hello, I used a Wacom Volito with different Linux distros during 20 years, it was always auto-recognized, even by Puppy Linux. I recently changed to a Wacom One because the other one stopped working (couldn’t left or right click anymore) and it worked out-of-the-box as well.
I don’t need pressure sensitivity for drawing, just the pen instead of a mouse. If I remember well, you can instruct Gimp to use that. Krita and other drawing programs as well.
Well I did find my old Wacom Graphire 2 Tablet (Circa 2001?), and it still seems to work OK.
Linux Mint Graphics Tablet Settings dialogue detected it without any issue. Although drawing on it gives a somewhat distorted sketch on Gimp etc, probably due to the tablet being 5:4 aspect ratio, and my monitor being 16:9. But pressure sensitivity is working well.
So at least that gives me something to try out until I can get a new tablet, as the drawing surface on the graphire 2 is pretty scratched up.
I still have my Intuos 1 from 2003 and it works out of the box pressure and all.
But the challenge you will face is to use yours with our highres screen of today and tbh, Graphire2 was already feeling short back in the day on 1280x900 screen.
As a follow up I ended up buying a “One by Wacom” graphics tablet, medium size.
Works pretty well on Linux Mint Cinnamon, just plug it in and it picked it up straight away. What I did do was in the Tablet Settings on Mint was enable “Keep Aspect Ratio” so that if I draw a circle on the tablet, a circle appears on the screen. This is due to the tablet and the screen having a slightly different aspect ration.
