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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."
Soon we shall challenge M$ AND Glaxo-Smith-Kline! Yes!
Meta will eat itself
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 put linux in my car. It can't steer, break, or play the radio yet, but it can make the windows go down (not up).
Will I be able to recompile my kernel with a stylus? ;)
The coolest voice ever.
I'm feeling cynical about so much news of Linux stuff maybe happening. Starting. Beginning. Someone is working on X. We'll soon have Y
Even some of the better distros at hardware detection like SuSE, Mandrake and Yellowdog have community forums filled with regulars who love using the OS, yet still don't have everything working. USB2 controllers only working at 1.0 speeds, ethernet not working, many with no sound and most without accelerated graphics.
I love my linux computer, and I left Windows years ago... but when are we going to FINISH some of this stuff we started? I feel like I'm living in a world of workarounds.
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/
First is the lack of hardware support. If you happen to have a TC1000 then this guy has the drivers for you. If you happen to have an M200 (like I do), then he doesn't have the drivers for you.
Second is the lack of handwriting recognition. That's essential for using a tablet in, you know, tablet mode. Without it, even choosing to visit www.slashdot.com is a chore, and you can forget about word processing or email in the comfortable tablet form factor while riding the bus.
Third is the lack of applications. There are a few well chosen applications that support handwriting as a first class input mechanism. When scratching and scribbling on things it is comforting to have circles and lines, and even my messy handwriting, be the same as I put them in.
It would be nice to have Linux working well on my tablet, but the tablet PC is a new hardware and software platform. Microsoft doesn't have a great and polished interface for it yet, only one that is good enough. Still, every little bit of that new platform that Microsoft and others provide for Windows XP on a tablet is a little bit that Linux doesn't have yet at all.
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.
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 have an acer TM c100. 256mb ram, 800mhz processor, 40gb hard drive, full size keyboard, 1024x768 tft screen and ONLY 1.4kg. for £850 + VAT last year.
hardware it has PXE boot (so you can get it started without needing to go through USB floppy or USB cd-rom) wireless and 10/100 hardwire, and firewire and usb-2, i810 ac97 sound, IR port, a tracker-pad (with all 6 buttons recognised by linux) and the full screen is ESD-touch-sensitive.
all other laptops you are bloody stupid to have bought, if you ask me: buy one of these and strap some bricks on the back if it makes you feel any better.
me? i would be better off if i stuck with a 2.4 kernel or a debian/stable system because there are binary drivers available for the Wacom touchscreen chipset.
the incompatibility between the drivers and X is due to the drivers (available on sf.net) being compiled for only 19200 and 38400 baud, but the wacom device's baud rate defaults to 115200.
so i had to patch and recompile the X driver to cope with 115200 baud. i only managed this once - and then upgraded and lost it!
the only other thing is that ACPI is not properly recognised (every single linux kernel presently available goes "invalid ACPI checksum, squawk!")
as a consequence of this, you must select which of the networking devices you wish to see on your PCI bus at boot time - the RTL 8139, or the extra Texas Instruments 3.3V PCMCIA slot with a built-in orinico-compatible 802.11b wireless device.
if you press the "flip" button, forget it - reboot time to get networking back.
what else... oh yes. after a year of virtually constant use, i've cracked the screen "side" catches (but they still work) the "middle" catch broke last week (but the one on the other side for locking the screen into tablet mode is still there) i've worn writing off of S, C and the left shift and ctrl, scored _lines_ in the left shift key with my nails, but other than that, it's still serviceable, and i love it.
oh. and the hard drive has about one head-crash per three months and wipes bits of my ext3 partitions out...
Why do I want to run Linux on a tablet PC. It all comes down to being able to do what I want to do with my machine not being able to do what Microsoft wants me to do with it...
I've had my Toshiba Portege 3500 running Gentoo for a long time now. As far as I know everything is supported except for IR and some software configuration (sleep modes, etc). The digitizer works wonderfully with the beta drivers. Support may have moved into the stable driver by now. For help setting it up, I found this page: http://rekl.no-ip.org/3500/ which covers about everything. The only problem I had was that PCMCIA CDROM support is sketchy. For installation I found that Mandrake 9 (or was it 10 beta) worked but I couldn't find any other distro that detected the drive. At one point I may have had it working in Gentoo but I don't recall. There's two reasons I still have Windows on the tablet as well... first, the Toshiba BIOS is very difficult to access and the Windows tools to change bios settings are much easier. Second, I just haven't found any good inking programs for linux. I bought this for school and use ink all the time in taking class notes, it's very useful. The digitizer works great for gimp (pressure sensitivity works very well) but that's about it. Any ideas for linux inking programs that would work well for taking and organizing notes?
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
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."