This is an important bit for Touchscreen setup

Annlyle.com doesn't cover this bit about running the callibrator program in enough detail:

2. Obtain calibration utility binary from www.nextabyte.com/support/touchscreen (you want the file named “calibrator”). There's a good pdf how-to document in the directory you may also want to grab.

3. Open a terminal and type

Code:

cat /proc/bus/input/devices

Look for the item with the name “Touchkit Touch.” In the line with the word “Handlers” note the output (for me it read: Handlers=mouse1 event2 ts1).

4. Select the calibrator program on your desktop and right click on it. Select Properties. Click the Permissions tab and click the checkbox “Allow executing file as program.”

5. Open a terminal and navigate to where the calibration program is found (e.g., cd /home/bill/Desktop for me). Type

Code:

sudo ./calibrator /dev/input/eventX

(where eventX = the event number identified in step 3 above. For me it was event2.). The calibration program should run and present you with bulls-eyes in each of the four corners of the screen. Tap the pulsating top left hand bulls-eye, then the top right hand, then bottom left and bottom right. The calibration program will end and in the terminal will be four sets of numerical coordinates for the screen representing minX, maxX, minY, maxY.

The calibration program will modify your xorg.conf file with a new section as follows:

Code:

Section "InputDevice"
 Identifier "touchscreen"
 Driver "evtouch"
 Option "Device" "/dev/input/event2"
 Option "DeviceName" "touchscreen"
 Option "MinX"  "82"
 Option "MinY"  "3900"
 Option "MaxX"  "3960"
 Option "MaxY"  "195"
 Option "SwapY"  "1"
 #Option "SwapXY" "1"
 Option "ReportingMode" "Raw"
 Option "Emulate3Buttons"
 Option "Emulate3Timeout" "50"
 Option "SendCoreEvents"
EndSection

If the calibration program does not work for you, you can simply copy this section and paste it into your xorg.conf file at the very end.
• Note: the section snippet above contains my tweaked resolution values and not the original values returned by executing the calibration program. I found the calibration program values were a good starting point, but I needed to adjust the values slightly to achieve the best results. Getting the touchscreen calibration just right is a trial and error process.
• Make sure to restart X by hitting Ctrl Alt Backspace after each change to see the results.
• Note: In the section: Option “Device”, I changed the line to read

Code:

Option "Device"  "/dev/input/mice"

• Note: In the “Option ‘SwapY’” section, I had to replace “0” with “1” in order for my touch calibration settings to track properly.

The calibration program will also insert the following line at the top the section: Section “Server Layout”

Code:

InputDevice "touchscreen" "SendCoreEvents"

If you want to use the pointer mouse along with being able to use the touchscreen, then this line should read as above. If you don’t want to use the mouse pointer but only the touchscreen, change the line to

Code:

InputDevice "touchscreen" “CorePointer”

I found that with the setting “SendCoreEvents”, the touchscreen would work, but it wasn’t as smooth as when “CorePointer” was the setting. I found that the touch pointer was somewhat erratic, but it did work. If you do not need the mouse pointer, then you may want to set this line at the “CorePointer” setting.

The calibration program also modified the section of xorg.conf called:
Section “Input Device’” for my mouse. I had to change the line to read:

Code:

Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"

6. So that I wouldn’t have to use the keyboard to log in to Ubuntu each time it started (helpful if you are operating in slate mode without the keyboard attached), I went to System>Administrator>Login Window. After typing in your password, click on the Security tab. Check the box “Enable Automatic Login.” In the User drop-down, select your username.

7. To enable Ubuntu’s silk keyboard for tapping keyboard input without an attached keyboard, I went to System>Preferences>Accessibility>Assistive Technology Preferences. Under On-screen keyboard, click the checkbox “Start on-screen keyboard at log in.” The keyboard will appear as Ubuntu is loaded. You can resize the keyboard and click the Minimize button to minimize it. There will be an icon in the upper task bar that you can click or touch to bring up the keyboard when you need it, like when typing in a web address when surfing the Net while in bed.

Ubuntu 7.04 has come a long way. I can remember when the major challenge for me in getting Ubuntu properly configured on a laptop was wireless networking. With this release, my wireless card was detected and worked right out of the box. We can only hope that with successive releases, the vexing challenges of touchscreens will become less problematic.

Thanks to wmadan