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Ubuntu 10.10 Multitouch Support Demo

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the isn't-that-pretty dept.

Timothy found a news report and a little video demonstrating the multi-touch capabilities of Ubuntu. It's attached below if you're curious what the new Unity Netbook UI is looking like these days.

12 of 104 comments (clear)

  1. Best looking dead OS I've seen by HangingChad · · Score: 5, Funny

    For a dead operating system there are some exciting advancements coming out.

    --
    That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
  2. Patent Violations Galore by aardwolf64 · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm pretty sure that video broke 2-3 patents that were just granted to Apple. Apple should totally sue them and take 10% of their revenue from selling downloads of Ub... Nevermind.

  3. Touchscreen keyboard? by spiffydudex · · Score: 4, Interesting

    One thing that wasn't mentioned in the article text or accompanying video that I am curious about, how does text input work? When a text bar or area is activated does it bring up a keyboard?

    1. Re:Touchscreen keyboard? by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That video had an awful lot of editing ... and some 'instant response' from the device ... almost like the commercials for iDevices & Droids on TV. It would have been nice to see a longer video with the actual response times for everything. I'm just sayin'

  4. That's great but... by imgod2u · · Score: 3, Insightful

    One of the important UI changes about a touch-only interface is that things such as managing the filesystem, arranging folders and icons, etc. are too cumbersome to do in the traditional navigator window type of interface.

    iOS just gets rid of it altogether whereas Android limits you to handling files via applications. Unless they've managed to come up with a proper auto-categorization and file organizer -- such that I don't need to go through folders to get to a media file I want to play -- this will still be a cumbersome desktop OS with a touch UI "layer" on top.

    1. Re:That's great but... by yelvington · · Score: 3, Funny

      Just do like I do. All your files on your desktop. :-)

    2. Re:That's great but... by Nadaka · · Score: 3, Insightful

      A meta data tagging system combined with search should work wonders for organization, if only people would actually tag their files so they can find them later.

      Auto categorization has sever limits, it can distinguish between file type, do keyword search on known text files and possibly use face recognition to distinguish between scenes and portraits or gps meta data to filter photos by location, but anything more than that is going to be impossible. It is impossible because it not only requires strong AI, but because it requires strong AI that knows how you would categorize things.

  5. What multi-touch? by InsaneProcessor · · Score: 5, Informative

    I saw no real multi-touch features demonstrated in the video. He just moved the window around with more that one finger. I can do that on any touch screen.

    --

    Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
    1. Re:What multi-touch? by natehoy · · Score: 3, Informative

      There were several multi-touch gestures, but it would have been nice to have him move his hand a little more slowly and make it more obvious which finger(s) were on the screen at any time. For example, he appeared to call up the desktop split view by using two fingers, and tapping all five fingers of one hand on the screen seemed to call up a tasklist or somesuch.

      As the article itself stated, the multi-touch gesture library is very limited at the moment in 10.10, but 11.04 should expand that library considerably.

      --
      "This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
  6. Re:But Linux on the desktop is dead. by DrgnDancer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Portables != Desktop. The article you're referring to also makes a point of pointing out how *well* Linux is doing on portables. This device is more closely related to an iPad than a desktop. That said I have several questions the video doesn't answer. Does this device have a physical keyboard or a virtual one. If it's got a physical KB then they did a fantastic job of hiding the thing while it wasn't being used. If it's got a virtual keyboard I'd really like to see it up as part of the video. Just to get an idea for how much screen real estate it uses and such.

    I've been considering an iPad. Honestly this looks nicer (at any rate more open, which is more important to me on a tablet than a phone), but I'd want to see a lot more than a couple muti-touch gestures to be sold. He really only demonstrates two gestures, mostly he spends the whole video using a single finger to simulate a left-click on static objects. Hardly revolutionary. Can it do pinch zoom? Two finger scrolling or one finger? Will two fingers simulate a right-click? (It's a mostly desktop OS, so unlike in iOS right clicking is probably pretty useful). I'm sure I could find out the answers, but if you're going to make a promo video for "multi-touch" show me some "multi-touching".

    --
    I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
  7. Re:But Linux on the desktop is dead. by natehoy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Can it do pinch zoom? Two finger scrolling or one finger? Will two fingers simulate a right-click? (It's a mostly desktop OS, so unlike in iOS right clicking is probably pretty useful). I'm sure I could find out the answers, but if you're going to make a promo video for "multi-touch" show me some "multi-touching".

    From the article:

    One of the coolest things though is one that will be experienced by the fewest people at this point – touch. Unity is fully touch-enabled – those big icons are screaming out to have a digit poked at them. But as ever, the boys in the lab, or in this case Duncan McGregor‘s multi-touch team have gone a step further and created a multi-touch ‘gesture’ library. This allows finger combinations to do groovy things like expand and reduce windows, pull up multiple windows in one workspace, and call up the ‘dash’ automatically. These are in 10.10. In 11.04 we will see a lot more.

    So I'd say, no, it doesn't have more than just what they demonstrated

    At least not yet. But you'll probably have a lot of them delivered by, interestingly enough, Natty Narwhal (which is odd because Narwhals don't look like they'd be too interested in multitouch).

    Given that I'm sure the multitouch library will expand even more significantly for 11.10, I'd like to make a suggestion for the name: Omnipotent Octopus.

    --
    "This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
  8. New ubuntu user here by iONiUM · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I recently got an Asus EEE (1001px) netbook as a gift, and it came with Windows 7 starter. Now, I use windows 7 at home (ultimate) and I don't dislike it, but I was very unhappy with starter. You can't even change the background image, I mean, what the fuck.

    Anyways, I used to use linux (I mean, like 10 years ago when I was in highschool I used to use debian and slackware), but haven't really since. I decided to try ubuntu so I did a USB installation and put 10.10 netbook edition. I have to say, it was just as easy (if not easier) than a win7 installation (which I have to do often), and is WAY better on a netbook.

    I think people who say linux is popular on portables are exactly right. It's an awesome fit, and I love it.