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Linux On Your Tablet PC
tyman writes "Michael Rolig has created a Debian-based linux package for your Tablet PC. The support for various tablet features is limited by the features on the tablet Rolig owns, such as the "half-working" pen button features. One important missing feature is the screen-swivel buttons common with most tablets. However this is a good start for the development of linux for Tablet PCs."
elementcomputer.com sells a convertible tablet running a custom Xandros linux. The distrobution doesn't come with kernel sources, and there are many limitations on the software side. Also, touchscreen calibration as a severe pain in the ass. As an early adopter, i can deal with these limitations, but it is DEFINATELY not ready for the mainstream.
I've got linux running on my Fujitsu Stylistic 1200. It's a tablet from 97. It came with Windows 95 and has run Linux (via a loadlin) for years.
While they are far from mainstream, there are many pages supporting equipment on Tablet PCs.
Other than the pen device and the attached button, it's essentially just another laptop, so the standard tricks can work.
Don't forget to check:
http://www.linuxslate.org/
http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/
I agree UXGA or higher resolution would be nice, but you also need to consider that tablets are usually meant to be carried around, and a large and heavy device would be less convenient. I'd love to see more resolution in a small form factor, but I'd probably prefer my M200 to a 15" UXGA tablet.
Whoever corrects a mocker invites insult;
whoever rebukes a wicked man incurs abuse.
--Proverbs 9:7
Maybe this is misdirected, but I already have a working tablet "pc" running Linux (albeit tiny and arm-based). It's called a Zaurus. The whole SL-C series is essentially a tablet PC, with rotatable screen+changing orientation, and pen input with handwriting recognition and onscreen kb + pointer functions. It works rather well using the stock Sharp linux distro, and OpenZaurus is really quite slick for this tablet-type device.
Looking at this project, some areas that are incomplete include the swivel sensor and other doodads that have already been tackled by OZ. Seems like it would make sense to build on the OpenZaurus codebase, rather than start from scratch, especially for Debian.
-J
I think not...(*poof*)
I have one of these tablets (TC1000) running gentoo. Most of the hardware works but not 100%. For instance, the pen works but is really choppy and there is no configuration program so you have to spend about 1/2 an hour starting then exiting X and changing the xorg.conf device settings by hand. If you use GDM the pen doesn't work at all. There is also no way to emulate a third button with the pen since you have to press the #2 button and tap the screen (which is also how it works in windows). the .xmodmaprc on this site might work except gnome just says it will ignore it. Ive yet to get rotate to work, perhaps if i used the "nv" rather than "nvidia" driver. The point is, the support for the device is in such a state that linux can be used as the primary OS but not in a corporate enviornment.
I've been discussing all sorts of linux on tablet issues on my site:
http://groundstate.ca/tablet
Includes available software, wireless roaming, Mandrakelinux, and specifically, the TC1000 and TC1100.
On the hardware side, there's the darn trade-off between the portability/mobility (weight, size) and the usefulness as a digitial ink writing pad. While I highly appreciate the mobility of my 12" convertible tablet pc, I stopped quite early using it as a writing pad for non-trivial diagrams and longer texts because 12" is too small and you even lose another 2"-3" because of the casing and tool bars.
On the software side, there's a lack of applications and those applications that should be predestined for the tablet pc have serious disadvantages.
As I've pointed out in the paragraph about hardware, IMO the tablet pc isn't ready or suitable for authoring longer texts or designs. I use my convertible in the notebook mode for these tasks.
The tablet pc in slate mode is still perfect for taking notes, sketching some graphs and the like. For a student like me, this would be perfect, if a) all material would be available in a digitized form (lecture material, scripts, textbooks,...) and b) if the document viewer application had great digital ink support.
I've got a Portege 3500, so it's the older model, but from what I hear the digitizers are basically the same. Check out the beta drivers http://linuxwacom.sourceforge.net/index.php/main from linuxwacom, they support mine just fine.
Putting Linux on your tablet is a bit like putting Linux on your powerbook....or putting Linux on your iPaq
Right. It's also a lot like putting it on your x86 laptop. Or your XBox, HDTV, DVR, PS2, or any of the other thousands of products that linux runs on. It's probably the most flexible general purpose OS ever. Which means folks inclined to tinker can put it wherever the hell they feel like. Get over it.
(For the record, I do own an iPaq, and it does run Linux. I'm quite pleased with it.)
Given a choice between free speech and free beer, most people will take the beer.
The problem with tablet PCs is that there are tons of manufacturers out there (mostly in Asia) and it is very hard to find hardware support.
;)
A good example is my BluePAD Tablet PC. It totally lacks linux support and I was unable to find any info whatsoever about the touchpad interface.
After playing with it for a while, I finally managed to do something useful with it and posted a small tarball on my site that would get it to boot into X:
http://julian.coccia.com/article-71.html
Someone said it is stupid to install linux on a Tablet PC that already comes with an OS preinstalled. Well, I strongly disagree here.
My Tablet PC came with CE.NET preinstalled. Everything worked, yes, but I couldn't install any software on it unless I wanted to write it myself which required me to sign up to M$ and get a demo copy of their CE.NET compiler (or whatever they call it). Therefore, the Tablet PC as it was as USELESS for me.
Now I can boot into X and do what I wanted to do with it
More info on how I installed linux on it: http://julian.coccia.com/article-40.html
Damn, I quit too soon. I forgot to mention all the cool things my laptop can do that it wouldn't be able to if it ran windows:
1)I can update all my software with one command. Windows Update will only handle OS components.
2)I can install nearly any piece of software from one unified interface. In Windows, I need to go hunting for the software and install it whatever way the developer chose.
3)I can personally control my processor speed and the criteria for speedstepping. Windows will not allow this.
4)I can choose any window and ask it to always stay on top. In Windows there are some windows that always stay on top, but you can't choose which ones they are.
5)I can choose any of the last 25 blocks of text I've selected to fill my clipboard buffer. The whole cut/paste situation is much more sophisticated in KDE.
6)I can run web/ftp/mail servers. If you want to do this with Windows, you'll need to either buy the expensive MS offerings, or go get Apache and thank the same geeks you are dissing.
7)I can remotely access both Windows Terminal Services and VNC, or run a VNC server. This will require 3rd party software in windows.
8)I can play DVDs. Again, 3rd party software does this for windows.
9)I can burn CDs. Same story.
10)I can take a blank hard drive, write DOS partitions to it, and format it for FAT32, in any size, in under 1 minute. WindowsXP will only create up to a 32GB partition, and takes over an hour to accomplish it. In fact, if you tell windows to format FAT32 on a partition that's say, 250GB, it will output the partition size (within about 5 seconds), then spend about 6 hours checking its integrity, and then bother to tell you it's too big.
11)I can move my installation to whatever hardware I feel like. Windows keeps track of your hardware and might make you reactivate the product if it changes.
12)I can use a usb->serial converter without a third-party driver. No such luck on my coworkers' XP laptops.
13)I can use the usb cable on my Sprint phone to connect to the Internet without a 3rd party driver.
14)As a matter of fact, there is only one device of any kind in my machine that required me to do anything special to add a driver. And that was as simple as using the aforementioned installation tool to install it.
15)If I wanted to, I could run my laptop as a wireless router/firewall. While I believe this is possible in Windows also, you would lose sophisticated abilities like QoS, fair queueing, L7 regex matching on TCP headers, traffic shaping, and all the other excruciatingly cool things IPtables has going for it.
You know, I could go on....but there's not much point. The important thing here is that it isn't Linux that lacks functionality. It has many, many times Windows' capabilities. And the best part is, I didn't pay a dime for any of this stuff. If I wanted to do all the things I've listed here in Windows, the costs would be astronomical. Perhaps more than the laptop cost in the first place.
Given a choice between free speech and free beer, most people will take the beer.
I have one of these as well, and would like to add a blurb about pdaXrom, which is an alternate ROM that uses X instead of a modified Qtopia.
While it currently doesn't do anything for handwriting recognition (why bother with a full and excellent keyboard), and the UI works pretty well for touch input. Not only that, while your buddies are using slimmed-down feature-light software, you'll have a full word processor (abiword), spreadsheet (gnumeric), email program (pick one), browser (firefox, konqueror), graphics program (gimp), compiler (native gcc!), editor (vim, etc.), games (quake, doom, nethack, angband, dosbox, frozen bubble, scummvm, snes9x, etc.), and the list goes on.
While these are expensive, i can't imagine using anything else... a full suite of software in my pocket, with GPRS for internet-anywhere, is very, very useful.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
To check out the opie project, it runs neatly on Tablet based computers and is made for things like that (PDAs tablets...)
The Siemens simpad can run linux, thanks to open simpad. I run Qtopia on mine, but it can also run Opie and X11 if you want that. This screen is an actual touchscreen, so I don't even need a stylus, I can use my finger.
-- "Perceptions create reality. By changing your perceptions you change your reality."