Hello Everyone, this is a short guide on how to get things up and running once you’ve installed Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) on your Viewsonic Viewpad 10. The main issue with Ubuntu 10.10 or with many other different Linux Distributions is that the touch screen has a few issues. Before I begin I’d just like to thank @Jev42 for guiding me to this website which contains all the information about the Viewpad 10’s touch screen.
Requirements
Requirements for this tutorial:
Overview
So once you’ve installed Ubuntu 10.10 onto your Viewpad 10 you’ will notice that the touch screen doesn’t function like it should, instead it requires two fingers to be pressed in order to interact with anything on the screen which is very unusable doing everyday activities, I believe this is occurring because of Ubuntu not detecting the Hanvon 10.1 multi-touch screen correctly.
Getting Started
Lets get started with fixing this issue, first of all press the System tab then go to Administration then select Synaptics Package Manager.
Once Synaptics has loaded up you will need to install a few packages. Firstly search for “build-essential” in the search bar at the top right of the window. Right click on the “build-essential” package and then select Mark for Installation on the right click menu.
Next search for a package in the search bar named “git” then it’s a matter of marking it for installation like you did with the previous “build-essential” package.
Once you have selected both packages for installation it is a matter of pressing Apply and following all the steps until both of the packages have been installed. Once you have installed the packages close down Synaptics and then click on the Applications tab on the top left of your screen then go into Accessories and open up the Terminal.
For now leave the Terminal window open in the background since you will need to prepare an empty folder somewhere in your system. It’s a good choice to create a new folder in the Home directory. You can get to here by clicking on the Places tab at the top of your screen then clicking on the Home Folder option. Then simply right click in the home folder and select Create Folder make sure to give it a short and easily to remember name, I’ve called my folder “Hanvon”.
Terminal Time
Now that you have created your new folder go back into the Terminal Window and change your directory to the new folder by using this command:
cd <insert your directory here>
So for me, for example, I needed to type in this:
cd /home/ojdon/hanvon/
Press enter to change to the directory, next step is to copy this command:
git clone git://git.lii-enac.fr/linux-input/enac-drivers
Let that run then change to the enac-drivers directory by typing in the following command:
cd enac-drivers
Once you’ve changed to the correct directory it’s just a matter of typing in this command:
git checkout ubuntu-10.10
Now it’s time for compiling the drivers into the Linux Kernel, a simple make command will compile the drivers, you just need to type:
make
Then install the drivers by using this command:
sudo make install
Then enter in your password and press enter, then you will be asked if you want to install everything, just press “y” on your keyboard and you are away! Once you’ve finished your touch screen should be working as usual.
Further tweaks
I’m planning on making a separate blog post on how to tweak Ubuntu to make it more tablet friendly but for now here is a very useful tweak. In order to get a right click function like in Windows XP: Tablet Edition or in Windows 7 (Holding down your finger for a few seconds) is actually very easy to do. You simply press the System tab then select Preferences then go to Assistive Technologies from here you need to press on the Mouse Accessibility button then check the Trigger secondary click by holding down the primary button. This should activate right clicking by holding down your finger on the touch screen.
Special Thanks
So that’s it, pretty simply in the end. I’d just like to thank @jev42 for introducing me to the ENAC website. I think I’m going to have a play around with Ubuntu see if I can create a more tablet-friendly interface then try and fix the touch screen issues in Fedora and Meego since they’re a bit different to fix compared to Ubuntu.
This guide is fantastic, thankyou so much. Logically, using git, this “should” work with OS X for even more tablet hacking goodness?
If you look at this thread:
http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=243601
Seems like OSX has the same multi-touch issue that Ubuntu had with the Viewpad 10. If the drivers were for OSX then, yes, it would probably fix the issue.
Good day. I have similar device, “3Q Qoo! Surf TN1002T”, and the same problem: touchscreen doesnt react on one finger and jump to left upper corner when pressing two fingers anywhere on screen. I made all steps in your tutorial, but has no effect. Could you help me?
Hi, I’m sorry to bother you, but I got issues with my ViewPad10. I installed ubuntu 10.10 et erased win7. There is no sound and I can’t find any drivers for it. No scrolling neither and I don’t know how to get the home desktop screen and keep it displayed.The same for the virtual keyboard. I thank you to help me if U have time to do so. Sorry for my poor English. Regards. Frank.
Hi Frank, your English is fine. I never managed to get Sound working through the speakers in Ubuntu 10.10 although it works perfectly when using headphones, I think there is a way of making it come through both the headphones and the speakers at the same time, I read it once on the Ubuntu Forums but lost the link. I’m currently running Fedora 15 Alpha, the touch screen works okay and the sound works out of the box!
Also for virtual keyboards I’d recommend onBoard (type in “onBoard” in the Run Menu, you can access this via ALT+F2) which is preinstalled in Ubuntu 10.10. The “Florence” virtual keyboard is another great keyboard.
Hope that helps!
i found a sound fix for 10.10 http://www.webupd8.org/2010/11/fix-hda-intel-realtek-alc887-no-sound.html it worked
:D+
Hello Ollie!
I’m quite beginner of Linux. The description is clear to me yet, thanks for the work. But there is a point where I’m stuck. When I search for word: “git”, gives up too many results, but neither one of them is called exactly “git”, but only contains this word. Maybe a stupid question, but I do not want to make wrong. Thanks a lot!
Hmmmm… Not too sure why it’s not showing up there, I get the exact “git” result when searching. Could you post a screenshot of your search results?
@Ollie
wow that was my forum post from back in january.
Not much in the way of progress then? such a shame.
I wouldn’t know. Unfortunately, I’ve never had much luck with OSX86.
Geez thanks for this writeup.
I bought the awesome $250 Barnes & Noble Nook Color rooted it, updated it to android 2.3.4, then first chrooted Ubuntu on it but later changed that to Lubuntu because Lubuntu is so much “lighter” on system resources (memory use primarily) than the full Ubuntu (lubuntu is based on Ubuntu).
However, I really wanted to just get rid of Android and substitute linux (ubuntu or lubuntu) so as not to waste system RAM and storage space.
When I learned about the Viewpad 10 today and that it was built with the ATOM cpu I figured it would probably be easy to get Ubuntu installed so I searched and found this web page… THANKS!
However, I would recommend trying Lubuntu on the Viewpad. ALL of the above fixes like the 2 finger touch problem should still be done and work exactly the same way as lubuntu is ubuntu just with the LXDE window manager.
Now I have to find a Viewpad 10 for myself. I can’t wait.
Hi there, I’ve tried Lubuntu on my Viewpad 10 tablet before since I used it a lot on older laptops and netbooks but it doesn’t seem to have all the features that GNOME has such as simulating the right click, if you’ve found out how to do it please tell.
Enjoy your Viewpad 10!
Nice summary! I’m wondering whether I should go and pick up one of these machines. However, I have a doubt that the integrated OpenGL 3D accelerator does not work in Ubuntu environment (due to lack of drivers). Does anyone know what is the status of this?
Could you pls update the tutorial becouse git clone
git://git.lii-enac.fr/linux-input/enac-drivers
this command has been change i try it several times and i get the messege that it does not exist i manage to dawno load the drivers tru this
git clone git://git.lii-enac.fr/linux-input/drivers
but after that your other commands dont work and im not really good with linux : )
PLEASEEEE UPDATE : (
Hi
Go to
http://lii-enac.fr/en/architecture/linux-input/multitouch-ubuntu-howto.html
and do instructions exactly.
I test it.