I installed 4.3.0 from Daniel Stone's unofficial package repository [1] so I could use my Jamstudio KB Gear drawing tablet.
[1] http://xf86-debs.mirror.positive-internet.com/ Usually, drivers should give an error but not crash the X server if the device can't be opened (as long as "AllowMouseOpenFail" is set). The js_x driver, however crashes the X server when the tablet isn't connected, with this error message: (EE) xf86OpenSerial: Cannot open device /dev/usb/hid/hiddev0 No such device. (WW) fcntl(-1, O_ASYNC): Bad file descriptor Fatal server error: Caught signal 11. Server aborting I have [Option "AllowMouseOpenFail"] in my XF86Config-4, so this probably isn't a configuration error. From what I can tell from comparing the js_x.c and mouse.c source code, js_x just sends the X server the file descriptor without checking it, while mouse.c does error checking and tries not to crash the server if "AllowMouseOpenFail" is set. I'm not even an amateur programmer, though, so don't hold me to it. The problem might be completely different. I don't know if the driver works properly if the tablet's connected or not yet. This is a laptop, so obviously I don't want X to fail to load every boot if the tablet's not connected first. What should I do? Email the author of the driver, who left his address in the source code? Join the XFree86 mailing list and post there? Try to fix it myself and post a patch (probably a bad idea, although the solution should be trivial if I use some code from mouse.c)? Please advise. -Andrew Gorcester
