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I'd like to know whether there exists hardware that satisfies these requirements:

  1. Working well with a recent Ubuntu (I'd like 13.10 to work well)
  2. having a touchscreen

It looks like we are in an unfortunate situation where no such thing exists yet... did I miss something?

della
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  • Did you have a look at Ubuntu touch: http://askubuntu.com/questions/236276/what-hardware-will-the-ubuntu-touch-support? – jobin Sep 23 '13 at 17:22
  • I did -- however, it's only for ARM devices at the moment. I'd like an x86 device actually... – della Sep 27 '13 at 15:56
  • What is the advantage of touch-screen? I hear it's nice when developing with the mobile device simulators, does touch work in those, in Ubuntu? (FirefoxOS or Android?) – NoBugs Nov 02 '13 at 01:43
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    This question appears to be off-topic because it is about hardware recommendation. – user68186 Jan 12 '14 at 23:01
  • I don't think this question is off-topic, I was asking about how to find supported hardware that fits certain criteria that could be interesting for other users, rather than a "shopping recommendation". I edited my question accordingly. – della Jan 22 '14 at 16:59

4 Answers4

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I just purchased a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Touch and replaced the installed Windows 8 with Ubuntu 13.04. Everything worked out of the box, including the touchscreen. 13.04 isn't really touch-optimized -- you have to hit the scroll bar to scroll a window with touch, for instance -- but that's not the hardware's fault, it recognizes the touch event just fine.

I haven't tried the 13.10 betas on it so I can't say for certain how well they will work on the hardware, but given how solid 13.04 is on the Carbon Touch I'm optimistic that 13.10 will work well too.

jalefkowit
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  • That's very useful, thanks! One more question: as reported in http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2110766&p=12504549#post12504549, it looks like the multi-touch gestures of Ubuntu are supported in the X1 touch. Can you confirm? – della Sep 27 '13 at 15:57
  • I don't know the full range of Unity gestures, but the ones listed in that forum post (three- and four-finger screen tap) both work for me. – jalefkowit Sep 27 '13 at 19:20
  • So is it worth it having touchscreen with Ubuntu? Or do you turn it off to save battery most of the time? – NoBugs Nov 02 '13 at 00:59
  • There are some proof-of-concept desktop touch apps available for 13.10, and they work pretty well to demonstrate the possibilities. But for most daily use the touchscreen isn't really relevant yet. I don't regret getting it -- the price difference between the X1 with touch and without was minimal, and it may be nice to have in future if more touch stuff hits the Ubuntu mainline -- but it's not a case of "you'll hate yourself if you don't get it." – jalefkowit Nov 03 '13 at 17:59
  • follow the https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Lenovo_ThinkPad_X1_Carbon – PersianGulf Jan 01 '14 at 19:36
  • http://major.io/2012/12/28/handy-settings-for-the-touchpadclickpad-in-the-lenovo-x1-carbon/ – PersianGulf Jan 01 '14 at 19:38
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The System76 Darter comes with Ubuntu touch. I've bought a laptop (a Gazelle) from them in the past and it's worked well as long as I remember to reinstall their drivers ppa when I reinstall. (Using it right now.) https://www.system76.com/laptops/model/daru4

Samuel Silbory
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I have Asus X202e also with Windows 8 preinstalled.

In both Ubuntu 12.10 & 13.04 multitouch screen is working out of box. But there are a small set of gestures: only 1-touch(act as click) and 3-finger move (move and resize app window). AFIK currently gesture recognizers apps such as ginn are not working since 12.04 due unity core modification

ruX
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Touchscreen works fine and out of the box on Toshiba U-505 under Ubuntu 13.04. Uses N-trig with DuoSense so any compatible pen will work fine...

user235027
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