• Diplomjodler@feddit.de
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    11 months ago

    The point of a tablet is to be secure to use it with a touch interface. If you install just some vanilla Linux distro, that won’t work. Is there any touch based interface for Linux that’s worth using?

    • dustyData@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Gnome has a strong touch interface. You just don’t see it when used in a desktop.

    • arthurpizza@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      If you install just some vanilla Linux distro, that won’t work.

      My Surface 3 Pro with Debian Stable would disagree. The Gnome desktop does pretty good without a keyboard.

      • ᗪᗩᗰᑎ@lemmy.ml
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        11 months ago

        Same here. I’ve got Debian stable on a Dell Latitude 2-in1 (can’t remember the model number) and it works great with Gnome and I can flip the keyboard backwards and use it like a tablet. Although it is bulkier because it has a keyboard attached.

    • woelkchen@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Is there any touch based interface for Linux that’s worth using?

      Plasma should detect automatically when the keyboard is detached and then apply some changes to its desktop layout. There’s also Plasma Mobile but I think that would not work well on the larger screen.

      If I were StarLabs, I would probably default to BlissOS which is based on Android-x86 which means all regular Linux distributions are still feasible to install.

    • KrapKake@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Gnome is actually amazing on a tablet. The touch gestures work well and it even does fancy stuff like pushes the content on your screen up when the on screen keyboard is active so you can see what you’re typing. The only thing that really needs work is the on screen keyboard, however it is greatly improved by using the “Improved OSK” Gnome extension. If only it had swipe type.

      Source: I recently acquired a hand me down Dell latitude 5175 which is an x86 tablet (can be found for cheap on eBay) so of course I had to install Linux on it. If anyone happens to be interested in using Linux on a Dell latitude 5175/5179 do note that deep sleep does not work and neither do the cameras. I also recommend Ubuntu LTS and using X11 instead of Wayland.