Hello all!

Given that Windows 10 is going to be unsupported by the end of this year, I was planning on switching to Linux since my laptop doesn’t meet the requirements to run Windows 11.

My current laptop is an HP Pavilion x360 and by far, my favourite part about it is how it’s not only a touchscreen, but the hinges allow the laptop screen to lay completely flat just like a tablet, (the interface even changes to a more tablet ish version) it’s great for watching movies and drawing. When I switch over to Linux, I want to be able to keep as much of this feature as much as possible. I was planning on installing Elementary OS as it’s designed to be more ‘plug and play’ as I’m not super tech savvy. When I was looking into if converting a touchscreen laptop to Linux, I read that Ubuntu has some touchscreen support which Elementary OS is based on, but I’m not sure how good it is, as all the Reddit threads on the topic were pretty old.

Whats the touchscreen support on Ubuntu like now? If you have a touchscreen laptop running Linux at the moment, how responsive is the screen? Is there other distrios that support touchscreen that are don’t have a steep learning curve?

Thanks!

  • skullnerd@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    11·
    9 hours ago

    My two Intel laptops work great with Fedora KDE.

    My two AMD laptops do not. Neither of them detect that they have an accelerometer, so turning the laptop to portrait mode doesn’t turn the screen. My minisforum V3 is the worst because volume output is either off or on, there is no turning it down.

    All of them detect the keyboard being flipped around and disable the keyboard and trackpad.

    I suggest GNOME for getting started in Linux with a touchscreen. There is less to learn than KDE, and the last time I tried Cinnamon on a touchscreen was painful (granted that was years ago, it might have improved since then).

    Look into the DE (desktop environment) and find out if it supports Wayland. If it does, there is a good chance that it will support touchscreens out of the box, but unless it’s changed in the last year, only KDE and GNOME currently have Wayland as the default display driver. (Not talking about window managers, they aren’t in the scope of what OP is looking for)

    If you are going to use a Debian derivative (elementaryOS, Ubuntu, Mint), stick with GNOME. Unless the distribution specifically upgraded the KDE version (Like KDE Neon, the official KDE distro), most of them are still using 5.27 KDE. It works, if you use Wayland, but it is far less smooth.

    For your distribution choice, a Debian derivative will be rock solid, but will lag on getting the latest updates. With an older system, that’s not really an issue for hardware. A Fedora derivative will be cutting edge. The latest updates roll out with each new version for the most part, but that can introduce some instabilities. As I understand it, an ARCH derivative (Manjaro, Garuda) is bleeding edge. Great when it works, but breaks often (particularly Manjaro).