Microsoft Surface Dial & Dell Totem Support Heading To Linux 4.19

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Microsoft Surface Dial & Dell Totem Support Heading To Linux 4.19

Back in May we covered the big rewrite of the Linux kernel's HID multi-touch code and in the process supporting the Microsoft Surface Dial and Dell Canvas 27's Totem input device. That work will be landing in the Linux 4.19 kernel...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-4.19-Dial-Totem-Driver

[Mthw]

Do we already know if Linux 4.19 is going to be LTS?

[tildearrow]

Do we already know if Linux 4.19 is going to be LTS?

What about 4.18?

[Mthw]

What about 4.18?

3 previous LTS releases were: 4.4, 4.9 and 4.14 that's why I would guess that 4.18 wont be one and 4.19 probably will. Also It is possible that 4.19 will be the last 4.X release so it makes even more sense to make it an LTS one.

[ElectricPrism]

None of us would voluntarily buy a complex Microsoft product and expect it to work right on Linux right?

I mean, I shell out an additional $1500 last year just to buy Wacom instead of Surface Pro -- I thought we were all in agreement that buying from Microsoft is a sure way to be in a world of pain and disappointment if Linux is #1 in your usage.

[creative]

What an ingenius device, man! But honestly if I could afford a really nice wacom screen surface display/stylus. I want one, but stuff is really expensive. I do prefer the old fasion paint and canvas/watercolor/mixed paper though. Having something digital would just expand my capabilities. I will have to stick with old school for now, right now I am in audio creation mode anyway. I had a wacom graphire pad and stylus once I never could get used to but a display surfce would work much more like sketching/painting on paper.

It seems when it comes to these sorts of things its usually better to by older stuff where support is already available. I can easily at times advocate old tech beats hi-tech.

[creative]

Very cool post though it shows that a lot of tech for artist is being produced, although I am not for microsoft hardware stuffs, have to hand it to them it looks pretty snazy. You can dial in color faster than mixing paint, pretty rad. Although I am very skilled with mixing paint, I only need to have 3 primary colors especially if I am using colored indian ink Dr. Ph Martins Bombay. Some primary colors if you don't due research are biased against each other creating dull colours it has to do with materials in the paint. Digital does not suffer from this, but its also a different aproach as well.

[M@yeulC]

As much as I sometimes eye Microsoft products with envy, I am sorry to say that I don't see the appeal of this one. Actually, I already have a scroll wheel (well, two on my mouse, actually), and a few extra buttons. Plus, a limited number of hands (and my desk is a mess).
Besides looking cool, I am not sure this would be an extremely productive way of interfacing with the environment. Maybe more intuitive, but then, I'm not sure; it sounds like it might have a steeper learning curve than a mouse, and definitely more than a touchscreen.

That said, it could bring unified interactions to the table, whereas with other input devices, it's a bit of a mess. I guess that's where the value lies. More constrained interactions.
Now, this could also be useful in VR: to have a knob that you can feel and operate without directly looking at it.

I was also wondering why they didn't put a touchpad on this thing, then realized that it would be hard to guess at the orientation of the device, since it is symmetrical.

[creative]

Well I don't really envy Microsofts products that that much. Often times if something lacks a feature"not actually pointed towards this particular post" it forces the artist to approach things in an unconventional way sometimes with great results executed in unpredictable ways. Sometimes having limitations forces one to think outside the box creating an advanced technique that not many people can get a grasp of how it was executed.

Sometimes advanced features can prove in the future to be very limiting.

Even though I have a Win10 installation for some games does not mean I game in it cause it performs much better and looks nicer in certain ways. I game more in linux even though it has limitations, or lack of performance. I embrace what is present in linux and run with it and enjoy it. I rarely boot to my windows 10 installation, everytime I do I feel like I am hanging out in a walmart super center, who in their right mind wants to hang out there for very long? I will take my limited amount of linux games and less than stellar performance than windows. Funny thing is now I actually have more linux campatible games in my steam library than MS only games. I think skyrim se will eventually get the support it needs in wine. If not I might just buy a copy of old rim.

[waxhead]

That Dial stuff is utterly useless. I have a 3d Mouse that I use in Blender (3D Connexion) that I use with the spacenavd daemon in Debian. works great and could do all the thing that dial could do plus more.