Looking for Linux on touch screen and specialised notebooks

[L0n3gr3yw0lf]

Hello. I've recently acquired an Asus ZenBook Pro Duo and read about Deepin OS. The OS looks gorgeous and, possibly, easy to get used to (coming from a Windows user since 1994, but I am open to other distros. With the recent (in the past 6 to 12 months of) really bad Windows updates I'm a bit worried about stability of using Windows on the only main device I have for my image processing and gaming device.

 

I am wondering of anyone has tried different Linux distros with Asus ZenBook Pro Duo. I know touch screen laptops work well with Linux but I wonder how hard it is to implement drivers and functionality with 2 screen, snapping multiple windows and software. Asus has proprietary drivers for its ScreenPlus that I have noticed because I could not get the screen functionality to work 100% with a fresh copy of Windows 10 and I was forced to use the default Windows 10 configuration that came with the laptop, like the switching the screens between each other with one button, the triple window snapping on ScreenPlus, the brightness configuration and other functionality.

 

As well as the pen and pressure support for both screens is very important to me (and the last 10% reason that pushed me into buying this laptop instead of the much better performance Gigabyte AERO 15 OLED) as I use it in both Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom.

I am looking for replacements for both Lightroom and Photoshop as image processing software because of the sluggish performance and heavy RAM utilisation for Linux, but it should function well with multiple screen, touch screen (I love the pinch to zoom and finger panning ... a lot) and pen with pressure support.

 

If anyone is interested in building a Linux distro around this or adding support for it I will be more then willing to alpha and beta test it, but as a secondary OS installation that is.

[elsandosgrande]

Well, as my laptop does not have a touchscreen, let alone two, I cannot attest to the touch functionality in Linux, but, given the "freshness" of the laptop, my money is on rolling-release distributions, like Arch, having the best support for such functionality (I am personally on Gentoo). With that in mind, Arch is not newbie-friendly. Manjaro tries and, from what I've heard, succeeds most of the time, it is still working from a distro which is not suited for new users (Manjaro is based on Arch Linux). Ubuntu and Linux Mint are very good in terms of newbie-friendliness, but they do not have the latest package (in case of Mint and Ubuntu LTS, not by a long shot).

If I were you, I would first try a LiveUSB with Ubuntu 19.10 and see if the experience is sufficient. If not, decide if the compromise is worth it until you get comfortable with Linux.

 

Regarding your second question, common recommendations for Photoshop are GIMP and Krita, though people have varying opinions on the two, while I've heard that Darktable is Lightroom's counterpart (as you can tell, I am not familiar with Lightroom, as I do not know what it does, but have Darktable installed). Other than that, I don't know what to say.

 

Good luck and have a good night!

[L0n3gr3yw0lf]

I was expecting to for the Linux community to need about a year or so to build the touch and pen functionality in the OS, especially since touch screen notebooks are starting to build a lot of momentum. I'm curious how well does Linux manage OLED technology as well, that would be a bit easier to implement since we have only one (still selling) panel from Samsung on the market (with a lot of laptops using it).

 

How about the Thunderbolt implementation through Type C USB port on Linux? Is it fully functional?

[elsandosgrande]

My laptop is a 2016 mid-range Pavilion, so I have no personal experience with what you are asking about, but my guess would be that type C Thunderbolt is working well enough to have its own entry in GNOME Settings and KDE System Settings. As for OLED, my guess is that it works just as well as on Android, as Android uses the Linux kernel and Android phones with (AM)OLED screens have been out since at least 2014 (Samsung Galaxy S4).

 

When I was referring to the "freshness" of the laptop, I was thinking of the smaller secondary display, not the primary touch display. From what I've heard, touch works pretty well with most desktop environments, like GNOME and KDE.

[L0n3gr3yw0lf]

7 hours ago, elsandosgrande said:

My laptop is a 2016 mid-range Pavilion, so I have no personal experience with what you are asking about, but my guess would be that type C Thunderbolt is working well enough to have its own entry in GNOME Settings and KDE System Settings. As for OLED, my guess is that it works just as well as on Android, as Android uses the Linux kernel and Android phones with (AM)OLED screens have been out since at least 2014 (Samsung Galaxy S4).

 

When I was referring to the "freshness" of the laptop, I was thinking of the smaller secondary display, not the primary touch display. From what I've heard, touch works pretty well with most desktop environments, like GNOME and KDE.

Thanks, I will try to test a few desktop environments and see what works and what doesn't. One beautiful thing about the Linux community is how fast and responsive it can be to solving issues kernel level (compared to Windows) and making changes.

[elsandosgrande]

Oh, also, my personal recommendation is to use Wayland if you're using GNOME, unless you need to record the screen or something similar, as it has no screen tearing. KDE's implementation is still rough around the edges, but it is better than the X11 session on my laptop (I cannot comprehend why I get screen tearing on X11; KWin used to crash on my laptop when trying to use OpenGL in the X11 session up until something like August, but never from my Kubuntu LiveUSB, which is even more perplexing). Here's a useful link: https://wayland.freedesktop.org/. The Wikipedia article is good as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayland_(display_server_protocol).

 

Since it is still a "your mileage may vary" kind of situation at times, some people are still quite against it. Not many, but they exist. Also, only Wayland supports touchpad swipe gestures natively, so there you go.

Edited November 10, 2019 by elsandosgrande
Clarified in which session KWin used to crash