Ubuntu Touch

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

I asked last night about mainstream distros that could work well on a 
tablet.  I was thinking of the tablet gestures that have instantly become 
normal and useful since the iPad (also implemented in Android and WebOS).

People suggested Ubuntu Touch.  The impression was that it was just a
minor variation of Ubuntu.

I wish it were.
<https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Touch/>
<http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/04/hands-on-with-ubuntu-touch-14-04-coming-along-but-miles-to-go/>
It doesn't seem actually useful yet and at the app level it has nothing to
do with the Desktop Environments we're used to (GNOME, KDE, ...).  It
doesn't run X.  Eventually it is supposed to run MIR and that would
probably allow X applications, but none seem to know about touch.

I can already run X on a tablet.  My Lenovo Yoga 2 pro is an ultrabook
that folds up to be a tablet (not that great as a tablet -- too big).
In Fedora's GNOME, the touchscreen can do some mouse actions, but not
pinch-zoom or related cool things.

I understand that X recently got support for multi-touch at a low
level.  I don't know if applications and toolkits have started to take
advantage of this.

This old article is interesting.
<http://lwn.net/Articles/485484/>

I have Ubuntu 14.04 with a touchscreen monitor.  It is using the
standard Unity/GNOME desktop.  Touch just seems to act like an imprecise
mouse.  I only tested with Firefox (my main use for this machine).
Two-finger drag doesn't scroll; no pinch-zoom; I don't know how to
right- or middle- click.

Summary: a mainstream X-based desktop is probably not very good at
touch.  Although this is supposed to improve, it is taking a long
time.  Perhaps a lot of windows are being missed.  After all, Win8.1
supports touch and encourages hardware vendors to include it.
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