# TabletPC Todos and is self-compiling XFree86 worth it

## Miaowara

Hi, I've got a Toshiba Portege m200. Its a tablet pc and I payed way too much for it. :Embarassed: 

That being said, so far I have gotten Gentoo installed, the wacom drivers [mostly] working and gimp-2.0-pre3(or maybe its 4) working great. There are still a few things I haven't gotten to work yet that seem to make or break whether I will be using Windows ( :Evil or Very Mad:  ) or Linux ( :Very Happy:  ) more:

1. The Nvidia GForce FX 5200 and the "nv" driver for xfree: Yes, I know. The "nvidia" driver has better 3d, blah blah blah but I want to use SUSPEND (which the "nvidia" driver doesn't like). What's a tablet pc (or any ultra/semi-ultra portable laptop) without that? Unfortuneately the 4.3.0 XFree86 "nv" driver does not support FX's though the 4.4 driver does and Nvidia doesn't seem to give a rat's ass.

2. Screen Rotation: Again, in order to get rotation (and not xrandr mind you, I realize rotation (and reflect for that matter) still do not work) I need the above mentioned "nv" driver (the xfree86 4.4 one).

3. Handwriting Recognition: I have searched around and the only thing that really looks promising is PenReader (http://linux-software.penreader.com/PenReader.html) but there doesn't appear to be anything other than this one [uninformative and confusing] website about it.

4. Gestures: I have xstroke and can get it to work (kinda) but holy crap is it SLOW. I write swish! and it goes ssssssssssssssswwwwwwwwwwwwwiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiissssssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhh...........

I've also tried wayv with a little more success but there are quite a few things missing from this program as well (read: buggy).

SO, I suppose my question boils down to is: 

if

I can find good handwriting recognition and gesture software (or do you know how to speed xstroke up)?

then

I will try my hand at self-compling XFree-no-more86 4.4 to get rotate and suspend working

else

I will stick with windows

fi (do I need that last "fi" or not, I'm still pretty new at scripting).

So my question to you, fair reader (and I appreciate you reading this far already) is do you know of any decent hand writing and/or gesture software? (even a pda type graphitti would be ok) &, well... I guess the XFree thing will come after that...

Thanks

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## slikdigit

don't of any yet, but since I'm installing on  a portege m200 myself, I may find out. Haven't gotten beyond the hurdle of install on a system without floppies or cdroms yet.

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## Cthulhu666

Just to revive an old thread  :Wink: , did you succeed in getting screen rotation to work?

I would really like to get runtime (without restarting X, that is) rotation working on my Fujitsu-Siemens T3010 (i855GM graphics chip).

That would be super-neat.

...so would a good hand writing recognition app, BTW   :Razz: 

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## chruldt

 *Cthulhu666 wrote:*   

> 
> 
> ...so would a good hand writing recognition app, BTW  

 

well, dasher is in portage, but I haven't tried it yet...

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## Cthulhu666

Well Dasher isn't exacly what I'd call hand writing recognition, but hey maybe I'm just being picky   :Wink: 

Anyway, thanks for the hint, I'll take a look at it when I get Gentoo up and running again (*mumble* damn buggy baselayout-1.11.3 *mumble* full of errors *mumble*).

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## Cthulhu666

Rumors say that the Kdrive Xserver supports screen rotation at runtime. Has any1 looked into this?

When time (and my 7 months old daughter  :Wink:  ) allows it, I will probably look into it.

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## mxc

Has anyone got the sound card working on this laptop? I have installed alsa-drivers, and alsa utils and used the snd-intel8x0 driver. Everything seems ok but no sound  :Sad: 

Also how about the suspend to ram functionality? Any hints, kernel config etc will be appreciated.

thanks

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## Cthulhu666

 *mxc wrote:*   

> Has anyone got the sound card working on this laptop? I have installed alsa-drivers, and alsa utils and used the snd-intel8x0 driver. Everything seems ok but no sound 

 

Sure, I got sound alright (at least I had last time I checked).

This ought to do it:

1) Add ALSA_CARDS="intel8x0" to /etc/make.conf

2) Enable SOUND in the kernel (don't enable ALSA or OSS in the kernel!)

3) Re-compile and install the new kernel

4) Reboot

5) Emerge all alsa-* ebuilds (probably not necesarry, but this way nothings missing  :Wink:  )

6) Start ALSA sound: /etc/init.d/alsasound start

I'm not sure if you need to edit /etc/modules.d/alsa, but mine looks like this:

```
# Alsa 0.9.X kernel modules' configuration file.

# $Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo-x86/media-sound/alsa-utils/files/alsa-modules.conf-rc,v 1.4 2004/11/16 01:31:22 eradicator Exp $

# ALSA portion

alias char-major-116 snd

# OSS/Free portion

alias char-major-14 soundcore

##

## IMPORTANT:

## You need to customise this section for your specific sound card(s)

## and then run `update-modules' command.

## Read alsa-driver's INSTALL file in /usr/share/doc for more info.

##

##  ALSA portion

## alias snd-card-0 snd-interwave

## alias snd-card-1 snd-ens1371

##  OSS/Free portion

## alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0

## alias sound-slot-1 snd-card-1

##

# OSS/Free portion - card #1

alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss

alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss

alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss

alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss

alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss

##  OSS/Free portion - card #2

## alias sound-service-1-0 snd-mixer-oss

## alias sound-service-1-3 snd-pcm-oss

## alias sound-service-1-12 snd-pcm-oss

alias /dev/mixer snd-mixer-oss

alias /dev/dsp snd-pcm-oss

alias /dev/midi snd-seq-oss

# Set this to the correct number of cards.

options snd cards_limit=1
```

As for STR, I haven't had time to look at this yet...

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## Cthulhu666

 *Cthulhu666 wrote:*   

> Rumors say that the Kdrive Xserver supports screen rotation at runtime. Has any1 looked into this?
> 
> When time (and my 7 months old daughter  ) allows it, I will probably look into it.

 

My daughter is now 9 months and I still haven't had time to look into this. I have however found this:

 *Quote:*   

> RandR
> 
> The X Resize, Rotate and Refresh Rate extension has a few details left. RandR provides facilities for resize, rotation, and refresh rate changing of X screens. This is needed for good support on laptops, for migration of applications, and for dynamic changes of depths. A version without rotation support is in XFree86; Kdrive has full support. We hope/expect that only upward comptible changes, if any, will be needed from here on out, but there is insufficient implementation experience to claim that incompatible change would never occur.

 

Source: http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/FreedesktopProjects

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## mxc

my laptop is still mute  :Sad:  Havent got time to sort it out though. I have got the touch screen working. Just need to calibrate the pen and cursor. Does anyone need to do something special for suspend to disk/ram to work?

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## Cthulhu666

 *mxc wrote:*   

> my laptop is still mute  Havent got time to sort it out though. I have got the touch screen working. Just need to calibrate the pen and cursor. Does anyone need to do something special for suspend to disk/ram to work?

 

That's kind of weird... I know this may be stupid, but have you checked the mixer settings? It isn't muted or turned all the way down?

As for calibration, I downloaded the driver from http://linuxwacom.sf.net/, compiled it and copied it to /usr/lib/modules/input - after that I had no problems.

I still haven't looked at Suspend...

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## Cthulhu666

Have you tried running alsaconf?

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