(no subject)

I'm listening to Sasha ("Communicate One"), ripping "Live in Ibiza 2", and thinking that Ibiza 1 must be in my portable CD player. Somewhere. I lost it a few months ago, though I suspect it's somewhere in this house... I did, however, find a copy of Ibiza 1 while cleaning my room today. Good thing, as this is apparently the only set of Sasha discs I had neglected to rip to MP3. That is being corrected.

( In which I ramble about CDs, music, and technical gibberish )

Sometimes, it just works

I brought out my Wacom tablet this evening (after my wrist started hurting from doing too many fine movements, naughty me) and plugged it into the USB port. I've been working in the Gimp on a graphic, but this is a new computer, so I had been doing it all with the touchpad because setting up the Wacom under linux usually takes about half an hour even if you know what you're doing. I didn't feel up to it, but finally decided that doing it all on the touchpad was ridiculous when I had the proper tool available.

I plugged it in and, as I always do, gave it an experimental swipe with the pen. Suddenly windows moved, text highlighted, and I was staring in disbelief. They finally did it. x.org has finally integrated the Wacom driver fully into X, out of the box. It Just Friggin' Works now. No more compiling drivers, installing modules, restarting XWindows... Five seconds of plugging it in. That's an easier installation than on Microsoft Windows.

Okay, the driver settings need a little tweaking -- the active area seems to drift, since I suspect it's expecting a smaller tablet than my 11x14. I'll track down those settings and adjust them again... but the driver does support full pressure-sensitivity and all the physical tools. No tilt or any of the really fancy stuff, but I don't use that anyway...

My wrist doesn't hurt anymore. As a bonus, all that practice in the past has paid off, and I finally have a nearly instinctive feel for the tablet. It's aaaaaalmost as easy as pencil and paper. (I'm gettin' there.)

Yay progress!