Bother ... wrote quite a long message & then lost it. :(

OK:
I've just acquired a spare tablet, it's an old Toshiba 3500 - one where the original owner left work & so no-one knew his password. As I've been wanting to test out linux for a while, it struck me as a good excuse to try installing it.

I went for Fedora - and have got it running from the hard drive. The pen works, sort of; it needs some calibration!

The link to Debian on a M200 in here was useful, and I've found http://groundstate.ca/tabletsoft & TuxMobil: Tablet PCs, Pen PCs and Convertibles with Linux which have been useful (I also have a Linux for numpties book!)

It's going to take some time, so if you have any handy hints, they'd be appreciated!