Any Wacom Intuous 4/Pro users out there? Info needed...

[Eric The Viking]

My 20-year-old, serial Wacom tablet is working just fine, but won't run under Linux*.

I have to get a current model. This make me miserable, as the thing's almost new (compared to some of my woodworking tools).

Befor I can get back to normal, I have a simple but annoying problem: I don't know which one to order. This is because I don't know what the active area of the new tablets actualy is - Wacom don't say!

They used to be listed as "A4" or "A5" or whatever. Now they just list the external dimensions, even on their own web site (which is an exercise in how not to do a web site, incidentally).

I think the Intuos Pro Medium is the same size as my original A5 Intuos tablet, but I need to be certain. It's a trade-off between desk space and usability - A5 is just right, A6 and A4 don't work for me.

So, If anyone has a current Intuos Pro (or Intuous 4, which, I think, is last year's name for the same thing), please can you tell me which one it is, and what size the active area is too?

Many thanks,

E.

PS: In case anyone is interested, I have Sketchup working fine under Wine on Ubuntu + XFCE desktop (meaning it will probably run even better under X-Ubuntu). It's on the wrong machine though - a development/test server, with only an integrated analog VGA output and not yet my desktop box. So yes, it works (and doesn't actually crash so far!), but it's really slow with screen refreshes.

The desktop box has two screens and a decent accelerated DVI graphics card, which is compatible with Wine (Wine has got really good nowadays, it seems). So I don't know, but I think Sketchup will work just fine.

*You are supposed to be able to hack Linux drivers so that even the ancient serial tablets will run, but so far I've been unsuccessful. The fact that these days it requires a USB-to-serial adapter might be significant though.

 

[Jack (W)]

Hopefully this helps...

Intuos-pro-medium#Specifications:

Size 380 x 251 x 12 mm

Active Area 224 x 140 mm

http://www.wacom.com/en-us/products/pen ... ifications

Jack

 

[RogerP]

I have Sketchup working well in Wine/Ubuntu 14.04 but I don't have tablet any more so I'll be interested to see how you get on.

 

[Eric The Viking]

Thanks Jack. I don't have a large screen presently, so simply couldn't see half of what's on a Wacom web page!

This may be a lost cause. What I really wanted was a simple A5 (active area) tablet, with the older Wacom style of tilt and pressure recognition and two buttons on the pen. Nothing fancy, just good for the task. Wacom no longer make one, it seems.

If I want simplicity I can have one without tilt and with only one button on the pen, but finger gesture recognition, which I emphatically don't want! (guess I can turn this off).

But if I want tilt and a second stylus button, the thing becomes massive, with a raft of unnecessary buttons and stuff down one side, and a huge margin all round the active area of the tablet that does nothing. For an A5 active area, the thing is almost twice as big as my original Intuous 1, and all the extra acreage is stuff I probably will never use (especially under Linux).

I had some handy stuff programmed in for Sketchup, and long macros for HTML programming (it's really fast for that). It's looking like it may be not worth getting one after all.

Ironically for me, cost isn't the issue, as I'm being given it for Christmas and I've been specifically told to get the one most suitable, irrespective.

I'll look at some of the Far Eastern ones too, I think, before deciding. That's another issue again, though.

Wacom has support out of the box on clean Ubuntu (and, if you hack its config file, for XFCE too, which is what interests me). Infuriatingly, the icon is an image of my current Intuous 1 tablet! The Taiwanese ones apparently emulate Wacom but not brilliantly.

More research needed. Sigh.

 

[Eric The Viking]

Spent an entertaining time over the last evening cehcking out tablets. I don't want a huge one (desk space issue), otherwise the Monoprice 12" one would win (plug+play under Linux, it seems).

Have gone instead for the Huion H610 Pro, mainly because it seems to be a good space compromise and has a rechargable stylus that's simliar to the Intuos one (a bit fatter). Apparently I have to edit a config file to get it going properly, but it's do-able. I'll report back on how it goes. It was 55 quid from Amazon, which is about 1/5 the price of the Wacom pro tablet, although that has tilt and this one doesn't.

Will report back when it turns up.

E.