Linux Tablet PC

[Gamingphreek]

My Tablet PC (Toshiba M400) is running noticeably slower than when I got it so an reformat is in order.

I really want to continue to use Linux on one of my computers, and seeing as my Tablet PC is the most basic (Non 64bit, Dual Core, No RAID, Intel Graphics) I want to try to continue to use it on there.

I did some research and found that there are some applications that allow it, but can anyone offer any advice/opinions on using Linux (Want to use Ubuntu Edgy Eft- 6.10 but open to others) on a Tablet PC?

-Kevin

 

[drag]

If it's dual core it's 64bit, right? Linux 64bit is better and more complete then Windows 64bit, but whatever. (better hardware support, better software support, etc) Unless you have 6gigs of ram in it 32bit is easier in either OS.

I did some research and found that there are some applications that allow it, but can anyone offer any advice/opinions on using Linux (Want to use Ubuntu Edgy Eft- 6.10 but open to others) on a Tablet PC?

What do you mean 'applications that allow it'?
You mean the touch screen thing?

You'll want to find out what sort of touch screen you have. Tablet PCs are not very common in Linux-land. People tend to prefer having a keyboard all the time...

It will get treated like a mouse. If your lucky your using a model whose touch screen is Wacom-based, which is well supported.

For the 'Rotate and Resize' of the display; this is a fairly new thing in Linux. Support for these sort of advanced features in displays and better external monitor/projector support will be much more complete in the next release of X.org; 7.3. For best results your going to want to use a very recent distro with the latest X.org. Fedora Core 6 or Ubuntu should be a good starting point. Your intel video will be the best supported for doing stuff like that and both 2d and 3d should be supported out of the box.

I found a handy page
http://www.math.upenn.edu/~vincentb/UbuntuPortege.html
that is from
http://tuxmobil.org/toshiba.html

Like I said it's not to common to have Linux on those sort of devices, but with a little work it should be fine.

If you want to some of the more advanced features of the wacom stuff aviable check out:
http://linuxwacom.sourceforge.net/

 

[Gamingphreek]

Thank you so much.

It is a Core Duo, not Core 2 Duo. Unless I am mistaken (It is 9:54 in the morning, it is entirely possible that I can't think properly ) it is a 32bit only processor. I wish I had a Core 2 Duo but I have 2.5 years left on this Tablet PC before I can consider upgrading

Yeah I was referring to the touch screen. The Screen Rotation isn't a huge thing to me because, I generally use the Tablet in Landscape Mode so the Screen Controls are right at my finger tips. But I was referring more to the ability to export .pdf's into something similar to Journal Note writer. I was also hoping that the 5 in 1 Card reader, as well as Wireless, and what not would be supported. I generally do not game at all on my Tablet.

Do you know about how long until the next Xorg release? If it is a month or so, I suppose I could hold out until then

I'll do some searching and check which panel mine uses (Hopefully it IS the Wacom).

I suppose if I have any doubts right now I could Dual Boot, unfortunately that involves partitioning the drive into NTFS and Linux Partitions :-\.

-Kevin

Edit: I saw that site...it's too bad the fingerprint reader doesn't work yet. I use that extensively (Though mainly for logon)- but thats only a minor set back.

Turns out my display does indeed use a Wacom Panel

 

[Brazen]

You could use the Ubuntu Edgy live CD (or maybe even the Feisty beta livecd) and try it out to see how it works on your tablet.

 

[Gamingphreek]

Oh was Feisty actually released? Interesting

I am definitely going to grab a Live CD and have it downloading (Torrenting) while I am at my other 3 classes today.

I tried the x64 version on my desktop a few months ago and driver support for Linux just wasn't as stable. I had to continually rewrite/modify the Xorg.conf to get it to recognize my card and what not. Not only that some applications simply don't see the X64 binaries and what not, so I have to apt-get those every time I tried to install an app. Granted Edgy Eft, and Feisty are probably much better and more refined.

Just out of curiosity- can someone point me to a Solaris Read. I have been hearing more and more about it. I don't want to install it and work with it yet, but I do want to begin reading about it and see what it offers.

-Kevin

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: Gamingphreek
Oh was Feisty actually released? Interesting

I am definitely going to grab a Live CD and have it downloading (Torrenting) while I am at my other 3 classes today.

Don't use Feisty. It's not released yet.


[/quote]I tried the x64 version on my desktop a few months ago and driver support for Linux just wasn't as stable. I had to continually rewrite/modify the Xorg.conf to get it to recognize my card and what not. Not only that some applications simply don't see the X64 binaries and what not, so I have to apt-get those every time I tried to install an app. Granted Edgy Eft, and Feisty are probably much better and more refined.[/quote]

My experiance with 64bit Linux is strictly limited to Debian. Debian tends to have much more mature releases then what you typically see with other distributions, the unfortunate trade off is that you require a bit more expertise to run.

The only serious usability issue I seen with Debian is 32bit application support. It's not a incompatability issue, but a usability one since your going to end up using the command line to work with it.

To have full 32bit compatability for everything you'd want to run in 64bit versions Debian Etch what you want to do is setup what is called a 'chroot' environment. There you pretty much install 32bit Debian and when you need some sort of 32bit propriatory application then you use the schroot command.
So it goes like this:
schroot -p firefox
And that will run the 32bit firefox version.

Not newbie-friendly at all, but it is very effective and I haven't experianced any incompatabilities. Details on how to set it up are aviable at
https://alioth.debian.org/docman/view.p...92/21/debian-amd64-howto.html#id292486

But like I said before there isn't any real point to running 64bit except of you have 4gigs of RAM or more...

 

[Gamingphreek]

Originally posted by: drag

Originally posted by: Gamingphreek
Oh was Feisty actually released? Interesting

I am definitely going to grab a Live CD and have it downloading (Torrenting) while I am at my other 3 classes today.

Don't use Feisty. It's not released yet.

I tried the x64 version on my desktop a few months ago and driver support for Linux just wasn't as stable. I had to continually rewrite/modify the Xorg.conf to get it to recognize my card and what not. Not only that some applications simply don't see the X64 binaries and what not, so I have to apt-get those every time I tried to install an app. Granted Edgy Eft, and Feisty are probably much better and more refined.[/quote]

My experiance with 64bit Linux is strictly limited to Debian. Debian tends to have much more mature releases then what you typically see with other distributions, the unfortunate trade off is that you require a bit more expertise to run.

The only serious usability issue I seen with Debian is 32bit application support. It's not a incompatability issue, but a usability one since your going to end up using the command line to work with it.

To have full 32bit compatability for everything you'd want to run in 64bit versions Debian Etch what you want to do is setup what is called a 'chroot' environment. There you pretty much install 32bit Debian and when you need some sort of 32bit propriatory application then you use the schroot command.
So it goes like this:
schroot -p firefox
And that will run the 32bit firefox version.

Not newbie-friendly at all, but it is very effective and I haven't experianced any incompatabilities. Details on how to set it up are aviable at
<a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="https://alioth.debian.org/docman/view.php/30192/21/debian-amd64-howto.html#id292486">https://alioth.debian.org/docman/vie......1/debian-amd64-howto.html#id292486</a>

But like I said before there isn't any real point to running 64bit except of you have 4gigs of RAM or more...[/quote]

Oh I completely understand what you mean. So when you want to run a 32bit version, it grabs the 32bit binaries to run it.

Looking over the procedures, I don't think I would have too much of a problem doing that. In fact that could be pretty fun

My Tablet has 1 Gig DDR2 533 memory and my Desktop has 2 Gig DDR 400 memory. So well under the 32bit constraints.

In the interest of learning more, I was wondering about FreeBSD, CentOS, and Solaris. Would it be advantageous (outside of being fun) to load these and explore them. Do any of those have Live CD's that I can try out?

-Kevin