Wednesday, December 07 2005 @ 05:05 PM EST Contributed by: sde
Historically, the lack of friendly interfaces has been an obstacle to making Linux® a commercially viable product for end users, but with available GUIs, that's yesterday's news. What's the next step in creating an easy-to-use Linux-based product for consumers? Imagine adding a user-oriented LCD touchscreen. A touchscreen facade can make back-end Linux applications very usable in such devices as custom digital media centers (either in the home or in automobiles), DVRs and PVRs, and even control interfaces for household robots. The potential uses are limited only by the imagination. In this article, get an overview for installing an LCD taken from a Sony PSOne, creating a modeline, and installing a touchscreen -- all for Linux.
KDE, GNOME/Nautilus, OpenWindows, WINE, etc. -- plenty of GUIs make it easier for users to access the power and elegance of Linux applications. What component can be added to this mix to insinuate Linux even more firmly into the consumer device arena? A touchscreen. With a touchscreen, a Linux device can become a controller for a slew of devices such as a digital video recorder, a TiVo-like personal video recorder, a media center, a smart-house system, or even a control interface to a toaster. The possibilities are boundless.
Touchscreens come in a variety of pre-packaged and separately packaged solutions. They have been around almost as long as CRTs and now show up in LCDs as well. In some cases, the touchscreen is already integrated into the display unit. In others (as discussed in this article), they are separate units that must be matched in size and intended function.
This article gives you an overview of the steps to prepare to install and configure the LCD (the image screen), the modeline (a configuration line that tells the server how to drive the monitor), and the touchscreen (for input). It also gives you some resources to answer other questions that might come up when you start to integrate a touchscreen.Tutorial
