Native Multi-Touch Support On Linux

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Native Multi-Touch Support On Linux

Mohamed-Ikbel Boulabiar has written in to report that he and his team at the Interactive Computing Lab in ENAC, Toulouse have been successful in bringing native multi-touch support to Linux. While there is Multi-Pointer X in the mainlinue X.Org server (to be released with X.Org 7.5 / X Server 1.7), there is now multi-touch support to be able to handle gestures and other actions.This multi-touch support requires the Linux 2.6.30 kernel...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=NzMyMQ

[Zhick]

Sweet!

and then sending D-Bus messages over to Compiz to produce multi-touch effects.

Actually that's a kde/kwin desktop in the video. :P

Anyway, is there any chance this will also work on those multitouch-touchpads popular in netbooks nowadays?

[AliBaba]

Great! One step closer to Linux replacing Vista.

So now I only need a decent handwriting recognition software. Any hints?

[bugmenot]

For people who think that videos should not require flash:

http://tinyvid.tv/show/2ld3zjvlmw41t

[acreda]

This is a great thing but also a shame that this is a demo rather than an actual X.org implementation so I imagine this will be next year.

I hope the android developers are taking note, too late for 2.0 but would be a great update and people will really want this

I am one of the few who feel that Android needs to stay with phones rather than netbooks

[hmmm]

This is a great thing but also a shame that this is a demo rather than an actual X.org implementation so I imagine this will be next year.

It's not as far away as you think - Qt Software has been working on adding multitouch to Qt - http://labs.trolltech.com/blogs/2009...ping-in-touch/

[JeanPaul145]

This is a great thing but also a shame that this is a demo rather than an actual X.org implementation so I imagine this will be next year.

I hope the android developers are taking note, too late for 2.0 but would be a great update and people will really want this

I am one of the few who feel that Android needs to stay with phones rather than netbooks

Google purposefully took multitouch out of Android on Apple's request.


Ontopic: I think this is amazing! Only, I wonder what "input events" are being used? does the screen itself support MT? or are they using the camera?
While I think this is great, the status quo in gfx driver-land needs to change for this to become really commonplace: As is common knowledge, AMD and Intel gfx cards have sub-optimally functioning drivers (I'm talking about both FOSS drivers, and in the case of AMD, fglrx). Performance-wise, Nvidia seems to be doing ok with their binary blob, and nouveau, quite like the radeonhd and ati FOSS drivers, isn't ready for prime time yet (partly) due to the massive architectural overhaul GEM/TTM, KMS and Gallium3D bring with them.
Once these new technologies are commonplace and the drivers have been using them for a while, MT on Linux just might become commonplace too.

NOTE: this is NOT intended as a flame to either the Intel, AMD or the Nvidia driver developers.

[Vadi]

They seem to be using kwin, not compiz. I guess they mistook compiz as a generic name for desktop effects...

[Pfanne]

though they do use kde they dont use kwin...
as far as i know kwin doesnt have the rotate and resize features (looks like compiz' freewins plugin) and the water ripple effects are a useless plugin of compiz too...
does kwin even support dbus?
im pretty sure this is compiz

[oliver]

What i'm wondering though, how does this relate to Xinput 2?

I figured that MPX is basically what would be needed for multitouch. e.g. each finger is 1 input basically? No? Then again, a touchscreen would identify itself as 1 input device obviously, but generate several coordinates?