On 9/6/07, Ted Gould <ted@gould.cx> wrote:
On Thu, 2007-09-06 at 15:17 -0700, Dazed_75 wrote:
>       * Is there a Linux (or Linux utility) that lets the user use a
>         tablet PC in that manner?
>       * Is there any real downside to such a system ( e.g. inherently
>         underpowered, etc)?

I haven't tried it, but I'm considering using Xournal[1] for this the
next time I have a chance.  Xournal allows you to load a PDF
"background" and mark on it with your mouse/stylus/whatever and have all
those annotations in another layer.  I use this extensively for marking
up documents that people send to me on my Nokia 770.  I think it'd work
for presentations also.  At the end of the day Xournal exports back to
PDF with the background and the annotations on top.

The only real downside for me is the fact that Xournal stores everything
as bitmaps.  Really should be vectored.  It doesn't support any type of
handwriting recognition either -- though I've never really wanted it.

> Note, that using a graphics tablet does not sound good for a couple of
> reasons, not the least of which being the difficulty of relating the
> touch point on the tablet to the content of the presentation.  Writing
> on one is even worse.

I have no problem with this -- I find it's just a matter of getting used
to using the graphics tablets.  But, Xournal was designed more for
tablet computers, and works great on the 770.

                --Ted

[1] http://xournal.sourceforge.net/

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Nifty.  Looks like there are several of these things based on the Jarnal page that page links to.  Interesting that the ones I looked at both use .pdf files as background on which to make annotations.

I also found http://tuxmobil.org/tablet_unix.html although some of the links there are broken, it is clear that a number of folks have tried to use Linux on tablet PCs.  Unfortunately one needs to follow a lot of links to see which ones got the stylus input working.  It does seem like these two sets of resources may provide an answer.

Thanks for the help!


--
The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.
  - George F. Will