Hiya,
I'm considering whether to try to get a graphics/pen tablet for
GIMP/graphics design and stuff.

Are there any OpenBSD users out there who currently use a graphics
tablet with OpenBSD?

These days, does support for these require custom drivers at all? Are
they basically just pointing devices? Are they supported by uhid(4)?
I've never owned a graphics tablet before, but I gather some Wacom or
other brand tablets/pens have eraser buttons -- which I suspect would
require a special driver, wouldn't it?

I thus far only run i386 OpenBSD, and I've only checked http://openbsd.org/i386.html#hardware  , which doesn't mention graphics
tablets specifically. If they're not presently supported (anymore),
then that would also be good to know -- I'm just asking whether anyone
knows more.

Grepping the archives, I found this:  http://mongers.org/openbsd/graphire4
However, it dates back to 2005 and refers to the usbtablet(4) driver
which disappeared between OpenBSD 4.3 and 4.4: http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=usbtablet&a[..] http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=usbtablet&a[..]

I also found this info
< http://www.flickr.com/photos/symmetricalism/2269700653/>,  but
apparently it pertains to a specific laptop, so I'm not sure how much
of that is generalizable, or where to find further info.

If on the other hand someone did know how to currently get graphics
tablets to work, and maybe even could recommend a (preferably very)
inexpensive (but not shite) device that works well with OpenBSD, that
would be super grand.

Many thanks in advance,
--ropers

Yes, daily as my main pointing device, works fine and much better for
my wrists than a mouse (or trackball which was a complete disaster!).

Using that as a reference, xterm(1) also disappeared ;-)

I'm using an old wacom cte-430, think the marketing name was graphire3.
It's only small but perfectly ok for my needs. If you have to make a
choice between small+good or large+cheaper, unless you absolutely
need the large size (e.g. tracing plans), compromise on size rather
than quality.

Wacoms are good (and no battery in the stylus) but if you use one
regularly, get a spare stylus, they don't break often but when they
do it's usually at the most annoying time.

Here are relevant looking sections from my xorg.conf:-

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier "w_stylus"
    Driver "usbtablet"
    Option "Type" "stylus"
    Option "Device" "/dev/uhid0"
    Option "Mode" "Absolute"
    Option "Threshold" "10"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier "w_eraser"
    Driver "usbtablet"
    Option "Type" "eraser"
    Option "Device" "/dev/uhid0"
    Option "Mode" "Absolute"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
    Option "AllowMouseOpenFail" "True"
    Option "DontZap" "True"
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "X.org Configured"
    Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
    InputDevice    "w_stylus" "SendCoreEvents"
    InputDevice    "w_eraser" "SendCoreEvents"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier  "Mouse0"
    Driver      "mouse"
    Option      "Protocol" "wsmouse"
    Option      "Device" "/dev/wsmouse"
    Option      "ZAxisMapping" "4 5 6 7"
EndSection

If 'cheap but ok' is the overriding factor, you might want to investigate a
serial based tablet off ebay. It may be a hassle to get it to work in
Windows or OS X, but *nix usually has less problems.

Checking this out is left as an exercise for the reader, however.

Thank you Stuart for confirming this. I might be tempted to buy one
and yes Wacom only.

I was thinking along the same lines, but I didn't want to have to lug
around a tablet...

After seeing the port of 'xournal' a few days ago I wanted to be able
to annotate and write inside the PDFs using
xournal, and I began looking into USB pens.

Kind of the reverse of the wacom tablet, and smaller more portable.

Has anyone had experience with a USB optical pen, similiar to the one below?

http://www.amazon.com/I-Pen-Digital-Writer-Optical-Device/dp[..]

or a pen like mouse?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/tech-data/B001FWKA7A