[Gimp-user] Beginner's questions about Gimp & Wacom on Linux for a kid-friendly setup

[Hanno Zulla <abos hanno de>]

Hi there,

my child draws (a lot).

She recently went to a comics workshop and learned from one of the
professional comic artists there that he's using graphics tablets to
colourize his art. Now she's hooked on the idea.

I found a cheap used Wacom tablet in pristine condition which will now
be this year's Christmas present for her. Yay!

She already has her own Raspberry Pi 3, which she mostly uses to do
simple word processing on LibreOffice. It was easy enough to setup the
Wacom tablet for the RPi, we have a printer and a scanner, so for simple
graphics editing and colouring, this should be fine and straightforward.

(I'm aware that the RPi is pretty slow, but when I tested this setup,
Gimp seemed to be fast enough. And it's a good thing when she knows that
this is "her" computer.)

As her software-developing nerd dad, I know computers. But I don't know
drawing, graphics or digital artwork. I'm a casual Gimp user for simple
graphics editing needs, but never used a graphics tablet before.

So now I have a lot of questions and hope you can help me answer them.
Please keep in mind that I'm looking for a *kid-friendly* setup that
makes things easy for her.

1) Wacom as a mouse?

Is it "normal" to have the wacom tablet double as the screen pointer
device? The default setup seems to be that the graphics tablet also
controls the mouse pointer on Linux.

I tried to find out if I can somehow setup the pen to be used in the
Gimp graphics window only, but while possible, this seems difficult to
do. Is the default setup also the desirable setup on Linux or if not,
what do I need to change?

2) Different Wacom pointers?

The tablet driver creates four devices - the pen, the eraser, those were
easy to setup and work as expected. What about the other two options
offered, finger touch and pad? Should I disable them or what are their
use for a digital artist?

3) The Wacom buttons?

There are four buttons on the graphics tablet - by default they are used
as mouse clicks. Can I use the button to choose tools? If so, how should
I configure them for productive use within Gimp?

4) Wacom & Gimp - your workflow on Linux?

When you use Gimp with a Wacom tablet on Linux, what is your workflow,
what are your shortcuts?

How do you use the Gimp toolbox while using the Wacom pen - do you use
keyboard shortcuts or do you use the pen (as a mouse pointer, see
question 1) to access the toolbox and select your tools?


Thanks in advance. I appreciate everyone giving this non-drawing dad
some help here.

Kind regards,

hz