I just bought an Acecad Flair USB Graphics tablet. Works very nicely under Windows (ME/2K/XP), with the drivers supplied.
Acecad don't directly support Linux but they do link to http://perso.wanadoo.fr/edouard.tisserant/acecad/ Now I assume this driver actually works however getting there will be pretty difficult for the average Joe Blow. It actually suggests that you need to rebuild both the kernel and Xfree86 to create the kernel module and the Xfree86 module. Each of these would be presumably well less than 100K (on Intel). I have noticed that standard RH8 recognizes the tablet, but XFree86 (on RH8) seems not. I have built many kernels and Xfree86 distros over the years, but as I get on I grow a little tired of doing this. ( I had to most recently do this for a USB Web Camera) "Philosophically" I was hoping that the modularity of the Kernel and Xfree86 should allow binary distribution of just the modules (yes, just like the DLLs/VXDs in Windows :-). I know that Linux is meant to run on multiple and CPU and hardware platforms. I am not scared of source code, but it seems strange that :- 1. There seems to be little desire (or maybe the kernel/xfree86 are too convoluted/platform specific) to allow just distribution of the .o files plus a script to install the drivers. Why is this so? Even if the manufacturers don't want to do this, I would have expected that there might some central repositories of these. (Maybe the Kernel/Xfree86 don't actually allow this, hence the next question) 2. Why do I need to "build" the whole kernel & Xfree86 just to build two .o driver files? It seems to be highly desirable that the complilation process ought to be able to allow one to just compile against a set of header files that define the standard APIs. The objects files create should then be able to linked completely at run time. The whole "make config; make; make install, make xmkmf, etc" incantation can't be an exciting prospect for the average user. Certainly the first time someone want to add a new bit of hardware would be pretty overwhelming if they face this. Hopefully some wiser head than mine can shed light on this. Martin Visser Network Consultant Technology & Infrastructure - Consulting & Integration COMPAQ, part of the new HP 3 Richardson Place North Ryde, Sydney NSW 2113, Australia Phone *: +61-2-9022-1670 Mobile *: +61-411-254-513 Fax 7: +61-2-9022-1800 E-mail * : martin.visserAThp.com -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug
