Update: I recently upgraded to kernel 2.6.15.6 and to Xorg 7. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the wacom drivers are now fully integrated into the kernel, so none of the kernel-drivers part of the setup should be necessary. You will NOT need to install the "wacom-kernel-source" package at all. Furthermore the wacom Xorg driver "wacom_drv.org" can now be easily installed by apt-get'ing the Debian package "xserver-xorg-input-wacom". So if you are running a later kernel and a later Xorg then the following commands will get you set up (almost):

apt-get install xserver-xorg-input-wacom
apt-get install wacom-tools

I just bought myself a Wacom Graphire 6x8 Pen Tablet (so now you should be expecting more fancy graphics out of me). It took me an entire night to get this stupid thing to work, but it IS cool now that it "goes". Here is how to set it up in Debian. First, make sure that you have a custom-built kernel in "/usr/src" (and make sure that you are running it). Don't half-ass it and mess around with kernel-header packages or anything... just build the whole thing and you'll be happier. In my case I have source in

/usr/src/linux-source-2.6.12

which is the kernel that is running (it was compiled out of there).

In some sense the Debian configuration should be totally trivial because there are ready-made packages to do it, but they don't quite work correctly. Nevertheless, you can start with

apt-get wacom-tools
apt-get wacom-kernel-source

The second one *in theory* builds a kernel driver for you and puts it in a .deb package in /usr/src/modules. You should install this .deb package (instructions are given by the wacom-kernel-source package as it builds).

After installing the wacom*.deb package in /usr/src/modules (using dpkg) you have a driver set up - but I found that this driver didn't work (it wasn't up to date). Nevertheless the package is worth installing because it configures udev to automatically configure the devices once a good driver IS installed.

The good driver (along with an exhaustive HOWTO) is located at The Linux Wacom Project. This should be considered the primary source. My notes here only apply to my specific situation - those notes are much more general.

Since I am using kernel 2.6.12 I downloaded the latest tarball linuxwacom-0.7.1-1.tar.bz2 and put it in /usr/src (obviously you should unzip it there). This will put the driver source in the directory

/usr/src/linuxwacom-0.7.1-1

Go into there and run the following command:

./configure --enable-wacom --enable-hid --enable-mousedev --enable-usbmouse --enable-evdev

The official guide indicates that all of the "enables" are not necessary, but I found that they were (I ran into a myriad of problems without them, ranging from the driver not taking control of the tablet to the tablet not working properly in the Gimp). Now type "make" to make the driver.

After the driver has been created, it is located in the "src" subdirectory. So go into

/usr/src/linuxwacom-0.7.1-1/src

In there you will find directories labelled 2.6.*. You should choose the appropriate directory for your kernel (or whichever is the next lowest). In my case I am running kernel 2.6.12, but there is no 2.6.12 directory, so I chose the 2.6.11 directory (NOT the 2.6.13 directory)!!!

In those directories you will find the appropriate drivers (*.ko files). Since my kernel is called "2.6.12-custom1" I issued the following commands to copy the drivers to their right places

cp evdev.ko /lib/modules/2.6.12-custom1/kernel/drivers/input
cp mousedev.ko /lib/modules/2.6.12-custom1/kernel/drivers/input
cp wacom.ko /lib/modules/2.6.12-custom1/kernel/drivers/usb/input
cp usbhid.ko /lib/modules/2.6.12-custom1/kernel/drivers/usb/input
cp usbmouse.ko /lib/modules/2.6.12-custom1/kernel/drivers/usb/input

Notice that the destination directory of the last 3 is *different* then the destination directory of the first 2!!!

That's IT!!! Rebooting the kernel finalizes the configuration (note that I am still having problems with booting my laptop with the Wacom plugged in - it freezes at hotplug detection. This problem doesn't happen on my big computer. Usually I just unplug it, boot the computer, and and plug it in once it has booted BEFORE I start Xwindows).

Now you need to install an updated driver for your X server to deal with the tablet. This driver ("wacom_drv.o") can be found in

/usr/src/linuxwacom-0.7.1-1/prebuilt

Pick the driver appropriate for your X server. In my case I am using the Xorg server, so I chose "wacom_drv.o_xorg" and copied it to the X server with the command

cp wacom_drv.o_xorg /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/input/wacom_drv.o

OR IN XORG YOU MIGHT TRY THIS DIRECTORY INSTEAD

cp wacom_drv.o_xorg /usr/xorg/lib/modules/input/wacom_drv.o

Notice how I changed the name of the driver to just plain "wacom_drv.o".

Update: as already mentioned above, this file has changed name to "wacom_drv.so" as of Xorg 6.9.

Section "InputDevice"
  Driver        "wacom"
  Identifier    "stylus"
  Option        "Device"        "/dev/input/wacom"
  Option        "Type"          "stylus"
  Option        "Speed"         "2.0"      
  Option        "Mode"          "Relative"
  Option        "Threshold"      "20"
  Option        "USB"           "on"                  
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
  Driver        "wacom"
  Identifier    "eraser"
  Option        "Device"        "/dev/input/wacom"
  Option        "Type"          "eraser"
  Option        "Speed"         "2.0"      
  Option        "Mode"          "Relative"
  Option        "Threshold"      "20"
  Option        "USB"           "on"                  
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
  Driver        "wacom"
  Identifier    "cursor"
  Option        "Device"        "/dev/input/wacom"
  Option        "Type"          "cursor"
  Option        "Speed"         "2.0"      
  Option        "USB"           "on"                  
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
        Identifier     "Default Layout"
        Screen 0 "Screen0"   0 0
        InputDevice    "Mouse0"    "CorePointer"
        InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
        InputDevice    "cursor"    "SendCoreEvents"
        InputDevice    "stylus"    "SendCoreEvents"
        InputDevice    "eraser"    "SendCoreEvents"
EndSection