Hi all. I'm off and running with a Pd project on my Mac, but apparently using my wacom intuos 3 tablet to its full extent is a lost cause on Mac, so I've decided to hook up a separate Linux machine to gather and send tablet data.

I've converted my evil Dell XP laptop to a sexy dual-boot Ubuntu Gutsy machine, my tablet is all installed and working with the latest driver from linuxwacom.sf.net, and Pd-Extended looks and works great. I'm using the 0.40.3 pd-extended package (I know it's unsupported, but all the issues below are identical when using the 0.39.3 release, which I tried first, so hopefully you'll indulge me anyway .

Problem is that the tablet and Pd still won't play nice together. When I use any of the linux event objects (hid, hidio, linuxevent) to open my tablet device (/dev/input/wacom), it gets most of the way there, which I can see because lots of good info shows up in the Pd console, but no events are actually generated, and I see errors in the terminal window from which I launched Pd:

evdev EVIOCGABS ioctl: Invalid argument

Can anyone help with this? I realize that this really concerns the event externals, but I'm flexible about using anything which will get the job done. If you let me know what info will help, I'll provide, and if there's any other way I can be generally helpful, let me know and I'll get right on it.

Thanks in advance,
Alex

Info which may be of use...

Here's the first line from my dmesg:
dmesg
[ 0.000000] Linux version 2.6.22-14-generic (buildd@terranova) (gcc version 4.1.3 20070929 (prerelease) (Ubuntu 4.1.2-16ubuntu2)) #1 SMP Tue Dec 18 08:02:57 UTC 2007 (Ubuntu 2.6.22-14.47-generic)

Here's what shows up in the terminal when I launch Pd via "sudo pd":
priority 8 scheduling enabled.
priority 6 scheduling enabled.
tk scaling is 1.33483483483
<init> : Avifile RELEASE-0.7.47-070916-12:47-4.1.3
<init> : Available CPU flags: fpu vme de pse tsc msr mce cx8 sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 tm pbe up est tm2
<init> : 1200.00 MHz Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1600MHz detected

Here's the errors which show up in the terminal when attempting to open /dev/input/wacom with any of the event objects:
evdev EVIOCGABS ioctl: Invalid argument
evdev EVIOCGABS ioctl: Invalid argument
evdev EVIOCGABS ioctl: Invalid argument
evdev EVIOCGABS ioctl: Invalid argument
(...lots more of this...)

Here's what shows up in the Pd console (looks good):
info: open 1
info: device 6
info: total 0
info: poll 25
info: range key btn_0 0 0
info: range key btn_1 0 0
info: range key btn_2 0 0
info: range key btn_3 0 0
info: range key btn_4 0 0
info: range key btn_5 0 0
info: range key btn_6 0 0
info: range key btn_7 0 0
info: range key btn_0 0 0
info: range key btn_1 0 0
info: range key btn_2 0 0
info: range key btn_3 0 0
info: range key btn_4 0 0
info: range key btn_0 0 0
info: range key btn_1 0 0
info: range key btn_2 0 0
info: range key btn_3 0 0
info: range key btn_4 0 0
info: range key btn_5 0 0
info: range key btn_6 0 0
info: range key btn_7 0 0
info: range key btn_10 0 0
info: range key btn_11 0 0
info: range key btn_12 0 0
info: range rel rel_wheel 0 0
info: range abs abs_x 0 54204
info: range abs abs_y 0 31750
info: range abs abs_rx 0 4096
info: range abs abs_ry 0 4096
info: range abs abs_rz -900 899
info: range abs abs_throttle -1023 1023
info: range abs abs_wheel 0 0
info: range abs abs_pressure 0 0
info: range abs abs_distance 0 0
info: range abs abs_tilt_x 0 0
info: range abs abs_tilt_y 0 0
info: range abs abs_misc 0 0
info: range msc msc_serial 0 0
info: vendorID 0x0026
info: productID 0x01e9
info: name Wacom Intuos3 6x11

eom

I think I've read everything there is out there on this subject on mailing lists, forums, etc., but I'm so sad that it doesn't seem to be going anywhere that I just have to ask again. Is anyone still trying to get wacom intuos3 tablets working in pure data on mac os x?

I understand the problems, to a certain extent (e.g. wacom's whacked driver), although I'll freely admit that my low-level technical knowledge leaves off after a certain point. But it seems like it's so close. The wacom driver doesn't work with hid, but does work with various other mac os x software (e.g. photoshop), so I wonder how it might be possible to hijack the events these other programs are using...

Sorry, maybe I'm being too optimistic, but there's one particular project I'm working on where getting x/y, pressure, distance, tilt_x/tilt_y data would be so perfect it's beyond belief... far better than a wii. I'd be willing to put quite a bit of work into getting this done, so if there's anyone working on this and there's any way I can help, let me know.

Thanks,
Alex

I did some work with MAX at CNMAT and on my own a very long time ago, but since then I've led a MAX-free existence - don't know how that happened. Anyway, I finally have the opportunity to get back into it, so I just started to catch up and see how things have developed since I left. Holy cats - they certainly have changed. The fact that I'm on this forum shows you a bit about where my click trail has taken me.

Ok, so I have the opportunity to retool and almost start from scratch, and I'm faced with general questions about the ideal OS / software to commit to. I'm aware that questions like these can be inflammatory, so I'll give a bit more info and justification for being so general.

I'm primarily a Mac OS X dude, although in my main profession as web developer, I use all OpenBSD servers. For one particular project, I may be moving to Linux because of its clustering possibilities. But at home, I do all my work on my G5.

My training, such as it is, is in composition - with pen & paper even. But I'm eager to expand my toolset with various computer-assisted techniques, and I intend to develop my own, not just use what's out there, so programming is going to be a big part of my plans.

My immediate inclination was just to lay down the $495 for MAX/MSP (my copy is so old I don't think I can even upgrade). Maybe add jitter too - looks insanely cool. But then I clicked on a link to a company that does cycling74-based work, and followed a link to Pure Data. And things really opened up from there.

So it looks to me as if there's a bit of a conflict here...

• If go with what's semi-familiar and go with MAX on my Mac, I immediately also get an IRCAM Forum Pass. Quite a bit of $, but a lot of bang. Good support. Established community.

• But then there's Pd, which is open-source - that's a HUGE plus in my book, not just because it's free, and it'll run on my Mac...

• ...but from what I can tell, a lot of the most interesting development in this field would appear to be taking place on the Linux platform, AGNULA, dyne:bolic, etc.

So that's my question. MAX vs. Pd, OS X vs. Linux, and the natural combinations. Will Pd be a practical alternative to MAX/MSP, with its established user base and support, or even an improvement? Am I shortchanging myself with Pd on OS X? Might it be worth taking the plunge into Linux? I'll be interested to hear all advice and experiences.

Thanks...
Alex

Well, I got a reply from the developer of the linuxwacom drivers when I asked these same questions...

"Once your activated wacom device in xorg.conf, wacom X driver, wacom_dev.so will take control of the dvice, that is no other program will be able to get the raw data any more."

Ok, so the behavior I'm seeing is absolutely normal, and my tablet is working perfectly. Now my only problem is those errors from the hid objects, and the fact that they produce no data.

So let me see if I understand this... where do the hid objects expect to get their data from? Is this the same situation as on the Mac, where installing a wacom driver = death? I'll try to dig into the hid source code and see if I can figure it out.

Later...
AF

Hmmm... no, I get nothing. After I first installed the linuxwacom drivers, I most certainly did, and I checked it with xxd and wacdump... loads of data.

But now I've activated the tablet devices in xorg.conf, and it's all working according to xidump (example below), but I no longer get anything from cat or xxd, or wacdump.

Deactivating the tablet in xorg.conf (i.e. commenting out all lines in the InputDevice and ServerLayout sections and restarting) doesn't make any difference... I don't get my raw events back.

Dang... I thought this was supposed to be easy!

Continuing thanks for all help.
Cheers,
Alex

(...after installing drivers, but before activating in xorg.conf...)

# xxd /dev/input/wacom
0000000: edf7 9d47 1e13 0000 0300 0000 9e6c 0000 ...G.........l..
0000010: edf7 9d47 2113 0000 0300 0100 042f 0000 ...G!......../..
0000020: edf7 9d47 2313 0000 0300 1900 3000 0000 ...G#.......0...
0000030: edf7 9d47 2513 0000 0300 1a00 4700 0000 ...G%.......G...
0000040: edf7 9d47 2613 0000 0300 1b00 5700 0000 ...G&.......W...
[...]

(...after adding devices to xorg.conf, nothing from xxd, but good output from xidump...)

InputDevice: stylus
Valuators: Absolute ID: 0 Serial Number: -65536

x-axis y-axis pressure x-tilt y-tilt wheel
data: +31382 +16259 +00000 +00005 -00001 +00000
min: +00000 +00000 +00000 -00064 -00064 -00900
max: +54204 +31750 +01023 +00063 +00063 +00899
res: +05080 +05080 +00001 +00001 +00001 +00001

Proximity: OUT
Focus:
Buttons: 1-UP
Keys:

(...incidentally, last line from /var/log/messages...)

Jan 29 17:59:34 [hostname] kernel: [ 16.372000] /build/buildd/linux-source-2.6.22-2.6.22/drivers/input/tablet/wacom_sys.c: v1.46:USB Wacom Graphire and Wacom Intuos tablet driver

lead - thanks for the info. That pretty much aligns with my first impression.

obiwannabe - also thanks for the info, although I'll mention that I added those details about OpenBSD servers etc. to try to communicate the point that I'm not a "mac person" in the way the term is typically used, i.e. a technically retarded creative artist - I use OS X as much for programming as for PhotoShop, and I've worked quite a bit with Linux in the past, so learning it won't be an issue.

Re: scoring integration - I can't imagine I'm going to be outputting notation from Pd - my composition and my dynamic music experiments are pretty separate, although I can think of a few ways that it might be possible, e.g. MIDI -> FOMUS -> MusicXML -> Sibelius.

So far I'm inclining in the direction of Linux, although it's not an easy choice, as I have an awful lot invested in OS X... maybe set up a dual-boot system? I think I have a project for the weekend