HANDWRITING (<- LINUX <- HOME)

I'd like to try some Tablet PC as I think already sor a long time, that it is what a PC should look like. But I work almost exclusively with Linux, therefore any Windows based tablets are out of question.

I've found one vendor which offers slates with Linux. But is this right for me? I do not want to use it for some narrow task, were you only need to tick some boxes in a form, or browse the web. I want to do everything on it, including maintaining this website and developing software in eclipse.

Thus I decided I would try to set up my current Laptop (a Dell Inspiron 8500 running Debian GNU/Linux 3.1) in a way I can do everything with the mouse, like I would have to do later with the pen. It may suffer from the drawback the mouse has over the pen. I acknowledge that you cannot write with the mouse nearly as properly as you could wit a pen. But that's not important. It needs only to show if everything I want to do is possible.

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For my record and for the benefit of whoever else wants to try a similar experiance I wrote down on this page my experiance in setting up supporting software and the results I obtained.

Available Software

I'm in the process of installing on my laptop the different software found on "Linux Tablet PC Software" and judge what kind of input capability it gives to me.

xstroke

dasher

Dasher is an alternative method of entering text, where letters move from right to left and you pick up the next one you need. It supports you in writing sentences by give the more common successive letter a larger space in the window than it gives to letters which typically are not used in that sentence position.

I had not yet the time to figure out how to direct the "typing" to the focused window instead of having to cut and paste from dasher to the application.

Links

List of Linux Tablet PC Software.