X Error: BadDevice, invalid or uninitialized input device 169

Running Kubuntu Feisty 7.0.4 and the latest “stable” versions of Beryl and Compiz on a System76 Gazelle Performance laptop with an Nvidia 7300 Go card, I kept running into the following error every time I launched an X application from the console:

X Error: BadDevice, invalid or uninitialized input device 169    Major opcode:  147
  Minor opcode:  3
  Resource id:  0x0
Failed to open device
X Error: BadDevice, invalid or uninitialized input device 169
  Major opcode:  147
  Minor opcode:  3
  Resource id:  0x0
Failed to open device

I found the straightforward answer in the Ubuntu forums:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=1762954

For reasons I don’t understand, my xorg.conf contained multiple references to a Wacom tablet device, which I don’t have. Commenting out all references to this device and restarting Xorg solved the problem