I’ve just purchased a new toy: the Wacom Bamboo tablet. Without any modifications, the tablet behaves in X like a (very slow) touchpad.
Luckily, kernel and xorg drivers are available, though support is not mature yet (I was expecting some gnome configuration tool).

Installing a Wacom Bamboo on Debian testing:
A. Install the following packages:
Packages that should be already on your system:
1. xserver-xorg-input-wacom (version 0.7.9.3-2)
2. linux-image-2.6.24-1-686 (or possibly 2.6.23, 2.6.22, YMMV)

Packages that you probably don’t have yet:
3. wacom-tools (version 0.7.9.3-2)

B. Tweak your /etc/X11/xorg.conf:
1. Add the following sections.

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier      "stylus"
        Driver          "wacom"
        Option          "Device"                "/dev/input/wacom"
        Option          "Type"                  "stylus"
        Option          "USB"                   "on"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier      "eraser"
        Driver          "wacom"
        Option          "Device"                "/dev/input/wacom"
        Option          "Type"                  "eraser"
        Option          "USB"                   "on"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier      "cursor"
        Driver          "wacom"
        Option          "Device"                "/dev/input/wacom"
        Option          "Type"                  "cursor"
        Option          "USB"                   "on"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier      "pad"
        Driver          "wacom"
        Option          "Device"                "/dev/input/wacom"
        Option          "Type"                  "pad"
        Option          "USB"                   "on"
EndSection

2. Change the following section to look something like this:

Section "ServerLayout"
        Identifier      "Default Layout"
        Screen          "Default Screen"
        InputDevice     "Generic Keyboard"
        InputDevice     "Configured Mouse"
        InputDevice     "stylus"                "SendCoreEvents"
        InputDevice     "eraser"                "SendCoreEvents"
        InputDevice     "cursor"                "SendCoreEvents"
        InputDevice     "pad"                   # no core events
EndSection

C. Configure the touch ring to act like a mouse wheel (i.e. scrolling).
1. I put the configuration in the in file /etc/X11/Xsession.d/80wacom-config_scrollpad, for lack of a better place.
Its contents:

xsetwacom set pad AbsWDn "5"
xsetwacom set pad AbsWUp "4"

D. That’s it.

More documentation and options here.

Another day, another ordeal getting Linux to work in a Windows world. And after spending one trying to configure L2TP to work in Israel, I felt the need to collect the knowledge I gathered in one place, so that future souls may save some time.