Touch Desktops
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GROUP TEST TOUCH DESKTOPS TOUCH DESKTOPS GROUP TEST Graham Morrison and his trusty touch laptop explore the cutting edge of Linux desktops. On Test Touch Desktops Don’t let your touchscreen go to waste. Unity URL www.ubuntu.com his is a technology that is work best. The third reason is that Version 7.1.2 still on the very cutting edge the touch interfaces of Apple’s iOS Licence L/GPL v3 Tof what Linux desktops can and Google’s Android have shaken Promised touch do – desktops designed to be used up the old launch menu and file enhancements didn’t make with a touchscreen. There are management desktop metaphor, it into 14.04, but does several important reasons why and many newer Linux desktops Unity still do enough? we’re doing this now, rather than have incorporated some of their waiting an indeterminate amount of features already. Gnome time for the technology to mature. Even if they’re not designed URL www.gnome.org The first is that it’s fun. New specifically for touching, it’s good Version 3.9 technology, and new ways of to know whether the new style of Licence L/GPL Gnome looks a little like interacting with it, is exciting, and design works with new hardware, Unity, but without the Linux is going to have to find a way or whether touch gets in the way. tablet and smartphone to work with touch. The second Which is exactly the challenge we’ve emphasis. important reason is that the set ourselves for this group test. technology is already here, not just We spent a few weeks with our Plasma Active in the form of Android tablets, but multi-boot system playing with URL http://plasma- increasingly in our laptops. Thanks each desktop as we would a active.org to Microsoft’s emphasis on touch desktop in a real production Version 4 for Windows 8, many new laptops environment. That meant we (from Kubuntu daily) now come with a touchscreen by missed the latest Gnome release Licence GPL default, and if you install Linux on (see p52 for our review), but it also It’s KDE with added touch one of these devices, you’ll want meant we took a pretty ruthless and less KDE. to know which desktop is going to view on whether touch worked. KDE URL www.kde.org “New technology, and new ways of Version 4.13 beta (Kubuntu) interacting with it, is fun.” Licence L/GPL It’s KDE. THE CRUCIAL CRITERIA Our target is the standard x86 PC, rather specifically for touch, the borrow heavily than pure touch devices. We’re using from the full-screen design of Android Android x86 Dell’s XPS 13, as reviewed last issue and iOS. We can also look at Android and as lent to us by www.apt-net.co.uk itself. The latest x86 release of Android URL www.android-x86.org (thanks Alan!). 4.4 works brilliantly and offers the Version 4.4 RC1 As such, any desktop can be made other side of the touch coin – a touch Licence Apache 2 to work with a touchscreen, but we’re desktop shoehorned into a laptop. For It’s just like the phone and not going to look at every desktop. the others, we’re going to use a base tablet OS, only it’s running We’re going to pick those we’ve found of Ubuntu as this ensures hardware off your laptop. to be the most effective. Gnome 3.x and configuration isn’t the differentiator – Ubuntu’s Unity are two obvious choices, only the way the desktops are designed because while they’re not designed to interact with touch input. 58 www.linuxvoice.com TOUCH DESKTOPS GROUP TEST Installation and Touch configuration input Working at the cutting edge isn’t always easy. You’ve got the touch. he Android-x86 build has come a long way since we first tried it a Tcouple of years ago. It might initially seem counter-intuitive to install something designed for tablets onto what is essentially a touchscreen laptop, but we really enjoyed the results. It’s like a very fast Nexus with built in keyboard. All the gestures from your smartphone work instantly, from sliding down notifications, or swiping across desktops, to pinch zoom, rotation with no further configuration. It’s tough to write about Android as a legitimate alternative to a more traditional Linux distribution, but if it brings extended functionality to your touchscreen and you enjoy using it, we don’t see the problem. It’s Plasma Active is tricky to install on x86. We used Unetbootin and a recent Kubuntu daily image. still Linux. Second to Android this time is Unity. This is he Plasma Active and Android and it worked amazingly well from there, because it does some sensible things to take desktops we’re looking at are so including both multitouch from the screen, into account the touch input. You can scroll up Tcutting-edge that they can’t be keyboard control and WiFi (an important and down lists, for example, resize a window installed in the way you may be used to. consideration for Android), as well as with three fingers and the cursor is hidden Not only that, you’re going to need a more touch control when needed. when you touch the screen. Those features traditional Linux distribution installed For other desktops, the challenge is alone put it in a different class. Plasma Active alongside for those times when you don’t getting the touchscreen to work well, as is pretty good, as you’d imagine, and KDE is want to be dealing with what are ‘works in most will be able to use touch as a mouse acceptable, but not without modifications. progress’. You won’t have these problems cursor. The best strategy is to find the very Gnome running off both Fedora 20 and with Unity, Gnome or KDE, but it is latest version of a distribution, as this will Ubuntu almost manages it. But only some something you have to deal with when include the latest drivers. This approach window title bars register a touch, leaving installing Plasma Active and Android, as worked for the Haswell XPS 13 for all the certain windows unable to move without both are different to most Linux desktops. distributions and desktops we tried, resorting to the touchpad. Plasma Active is best described as a especially as the XPS 13 Developer Edition remix of KDE for touchscreens. But it’s not originally shipped with Ubuntu 12.04, but just a skin. It takes over the entire system this will also depend on your hardware. and doesn’t work particularly well installed Our touchscreen presents itself to the alongside other KDE Plasma workspaces system as a multitouch Synaptic (as they’re called), at least not in the way touchpad, which means it works out of the it’s currently distributed. box. But this can also add complications if you’re using a genuine Synaptic touchpad Needs attention alongside the screen. When you combine Plasma Active in general suffers from a these two aspects together, Ubuntu’s Unity lack of love, despite early success, and it’s is the only desktop to have taken both the a struggle to find a working configuration. installation and configuration into As such, installation is best done through consideration, by its nature, with Android Android comes closest to just working. a custom Kubuntu re-spin, or by adding coming a close second. package repositories to vanilla Ubuntu or VERDICT OpenSUSE. We went for the Kubuntu spin VERDICT Android Unity written to a USB stick before committing it Android Gnome Unity KDE to a section of the hard drive. Similarly, we Gnome Plasma Active KDE dropped the USB image of Android 4.4 Plasma Active onto a USB stick booting with Easy2Boot, www.linuxvoice.com 59 GROUP TEST TOUCH DESKTOPS Customisation Usability If it’s not great, just what can Does a touchscreen actually add anything? you do to make things better? ere’s the rub (sorry!) – just our conclusion is that a touchscreen because your hardware has a can genuinely help in some very specific The point of this group test is to see which Htouchscreen, it doesn’t mean cases, and the amount that they help desktop environments have implemented you should feel duty-bound to use it. If is down to the desktop. In Android, for features that best work with touch. But it’s you are going to use it, the desktop has example, a gesture to open the settings also possible to change a great deal about to make it worthwhile. We have used makes a lot of sense. And Unity is how they look and behave even if they don’t touch and keyboard devices for a few obviously working on phones. But that’s support touch. KDE comes out best because months, especially when travelling, and where all the others need most work. there’s just so much you can change. You can dramatically increase the width of the scrollbars making them much easier to grab Android and move with your fingers. You can change Not surprisingly, Android excels at touch. touchpad (it works!). And using the the size of the title bar, and replace the icons After all, input has been designed around computer in this way is quicker and more with much more finger-friendly options. fingers rather than mouse and keyboard efficient than doing similar gestures the A cut-down number of options is also input.