this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2023
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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I've had a couple touchscreen portables that run Linux. I virtually NEVER use the touchscreen on the traditional notebook style portables, which are an Asus Zenbook from the mid-2010s and a Dell Latitude 7390 from 2017 or so. Both run Debian/XFCE. The desktop environment isn't really designed for touch interaction, and the screens have pretty low resolution and terrible multitouch support. It works.for the odd button press, or to advance slides during presentations. It's just not a great experience. Plus, both of those screens smudge like the Devil, and just collect fingerprints & dust.
The third portable is a Lenovo Carbon X1 slate, one of the generations from late 2019. It has a Wacom 3000x3000 touch display built in, and a multifunctional stylus. I run Mint Debian Edition with Cinnamon on that one. Its on Mint 18 or 19, so take the next bit as how it was a couple years ago: the touchscreen experience in Cinnamon is functional but a little.clunky. Touch interaction is responsive, accurate and smooth. Writing with the stylus takes some getting used to, but taking handwritten notes and diagrams in Xjournal or an app called Write was okay. I never got the hang of calling up the on-screen keyboard in fewer than a couple.of taps, but once it was up it worked fine. Its terrible for coding or commandline interactions because the special character layouts were more iThing-like.than Android but it did work, even if slowly.
One thing I did struggle with was screen rotation. I had to download and tweak a script that called some xrdb or xrandr commands when the orientation changed. Kludgy, but it did work and it got the job done.
I imagine newer versins of Cinnamon have improved on all this in the last few years. In fact, I was going to make a project this week of reinstalling that system on the latest LMDE to see if I couldn't make better use of it now that we're back in the office a few days a week. I was getting the hang of the digital notepad, and now I kind of miss it.
(Why reinstall? Dumb decisions on my.part when sizing the slices I used for boot and root. Gotta blow it all away to make it right.)
Happy to answer questions if I can.