Background
- Slimline tablet computers have become more popular recently
- These devices typically have a touchscreen and no keyboard. However, they support bluetooth keyboards for those who really need it.
- Convertible tablets have been around for a while. They are becoming more popular due to the convenience of tablet computing
Requirements/user expectations
- Using the finger to scroll (e.g. in a PDF)
- This is actually very different to using a scrollbar, and many apps don't support it
- Automatic or convenient screen rotation
- Virtual keyboard on-screen
- Handwriting recognition
Current status
- Many of these things don't happen `out of the box' with Debian
- Some things can be achieved with small changes (e.g. removing evince and installing okular, a screen reader that supports touch)
- Some things require moderate amount of effort, e.g. using the Thinkpad X220 Tablet is not possible with the Xorg version in Squeeze. The user must update their kernel (from backports) and take the Xorg packages from sid.
- Some things require effort (writing a script to handle rotation events and invoking xrandr in a meaningful way for the particular device)
Useful links
?WacomTablet - for Thinkpads tablets too