If you're Linux user and you have Wacom Intuos3 tablet - it's obvious that GIMP will not satisfy your needs. Solution exists: you can download and install free VirtualBox, install WindowsXP as guest system and work with your tablet in guest system, installing your favourite graphics application on Windows guest.
I did those steps: installed VirtualBox 3.0.8 on my SUSE Linux 11.1, installed WindowsXP as guest. But I couldn't configure it - checkbox to turn on tablet in guest system was disabled (grayed out).
I spent few hours reading different forums and bugreports, most of them suggested to mount tablet as usbfs to your system, but it didn't worked for me. When I found solution - it was fast and simple:
1. Open your /etc/udev/rules.d/10-vboxdrv.rules as root. You will see something like this:
KERNEL=="vboxdrv", NAME="vboxdrv", OWNER="root", GROUP="root", MODE="0600"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb_device", GROUP="vboxusers", MODE="0664"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ENV{DEVTYPE}=="usb_device", GROUP="vboxusers", MODE="0664"
2. Modify third line like this (adding name):
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ENV{DEVTYPE}=="usb_device", NAME="VirtualBox/$env{BUSNUM}/$env{DEVNUM}", GROUP="vboxusers", MODE="0664"
3. Restart your system to be sure.
That's it! Now checkbox will be enabled and you will be able to turn on your USB tablet for guest system. VirtualBox will fail with error (something like couldn't create usb proxy device) but only 2 times, when pressing third time - tablet will be recognised by guest system and you will be able to use it. Of course you should also disable mouse integration and your tablet will no longer be available to your host Linux system, but what for do you need it there anyway?
Being Java developer and fan of OpenSource I am writing lots of stuff. Mostly for myself, tools that I am missing or to get some experience with something. But of course there are projects that I think others will like and use if they will know more about it. Few examples:
- Once I wrote small tool for Swing apps to choose LookAndFeel in runtime. It was JLAFChooser and I hoped it will become popular very soon. But days passed and downloads count was small. I thought that mostly it's downloaded by different search engines, nobody cares about it. And I just forgot about it, didn't planned to make it better. Download rate is about 1.001 per day. No bugs, no feature requests, no thanx or private mails. Nothing. Maybe this project had it's future, but now it's as good as dead. And even java.net registration did nothing to improve the situation.
- Then came p4nb. I did it for myself anyway, I am still using it at work because it's the best available Perforce plugin for NetBeans IDE. It's just enough for me. And nobody cares. Looks like nobody using NetBeans and Perforce at once. I can implement vast amount of features, including changes browsing, changelist management and many other. But I have more interesting projects for myself, and nobody else asks for it. Why should I do it?
You will ask what's the point of that moaning? But the point is, once one guy mailed me with words like "hey, I added few features to your p4nb plugin, maybe you need it?". That day I understood that I am not the only user of that plugin, there are at least another man using it. It was the new beginning for p4nb, it got completely rewritten with new and better feature set and better usability. And then it was forgotten again, because all users were glad with what they had, no bugs and no change requests fired.
Today I got a mail from one guy who is using JLAFChooser, he asked about launching it from Java WebStart. Of course I answered him, but why so late? I have no interest in that peace of software now, and I will not get back to it's development. It's dead for me, because no one really needed it when it was interesting for me.
- How many projects died like this? What kind of project they were, maybe we lost something really interesting?
- What should I do to prevent it in future? Post to slashdot? Buy Google Ads? Tell me what I did wrong to fix it in future.
Thanx for your attention, and I hope this post will not be just ignored in the same sad manner.
