What you will needįirst we’re going to address the browser ─ since that is one of the most-used tools of the desktop trade. With that said, let’s take a look at what you can do to get that shiny new touchscreen device working in a way that actually makes sense. Ultimately, this falls into the hands of the Linux community to resolve, as touchscreens aren’t going away (and, in fact, will continue to rise in popularity). The bad news is that not all distributions respond the same way to these workarounds. It does, however, require the installation of an app and a Firefox extension. The good news, getting those very necessary gestures to work isn’t all that challenging. Sure there are some handy three and four finger multi-touch gestures that work out of the box, but the go-to gestures (such as right mouse click and Firefox scrolling) simply don’t work. Once you get your hands on a supported device (such as the fantastic System76 Sable Touch running Ubuntu 14.10), you’ll find that not everything works as you’d expect. Once you’ve used the touchscreen, you fully understand that they are, in fact, a much-needed breath of fresh air.īut in Linux-land, all isn’t exactly rosy. It’s that piece of technology that is being threatened with extinction, thanks to the touchscreen. Ah the touchscreen ─ that piece of hardware that promises to finally strip humanity of an interface very much long in the tooth.
