[clug] Tablets: predictable, but...

[Daniel Pittman]

On Sat, Jan 8, 2011 at 20:54, Jim Croft <jim.croft at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 9, 2011 at 2:48 PM, Daniel Pittman <daniel at rimspace.net> wrote:
>
>> The real question, to my mind, is "why would you want to do that",
>> given how poorly desktop software maps to a touch interface and how
>> annoying virtual keyboards are to work on.
>
> Quite. So I guess the question I should have been asking is, are the
> distros going to adapt rapidly into the notepad and screen-only niche
> as the hardware seems to be, or will they just relax comfortably in
> the domain of the laptop, desktop and keycap?

Well, Ubuntu seem to have been showing quite an interest in the area,
and recent (unverifiable) rumour suggests they might be looking at a
tablet of some sort, so ... yes.  Probably not in a form entirely
recognisable as their desktop variants, however, I would guess - the
demands on software, and many of the interactions, are pretty
different from the way I use software on the laptop / desktop systems.

Technically, of course, Android already is such a thing: a Linux
distribution mixing closed and open code, running on tablet and
touch-screen dominated machines, with a custom software set.  Not as
free as Debian or Ubuntu, which in regrettable, but it certainly shows
that you /can/ manage the whole thing...

Regards,
    Daniel
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