how do you set up the touch screen feature on ubuntu?

What kind of touchscreen and controller do you have?

Came across this link; try searching a bit more in depth before you go posting threads.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=158666

Yea thanks for that. I did search and that's great if I am using 5.10. I have 10.10. I have searched all over.

I am using an older verizon kiosk that currently has windows embedded in it. That is limited in what I can install on it. I can install unbuntu on it without a problem but I can not get the touch screen part of it working at all.

These kiosks were donated to our school and we would like to use them in our library or for some of our our special ed kids and the touch screen would be great for them.

Any other help would be greatly appreciated.

How is it connected to the machine, USB, etc? And could you provide us with some specifications of the hardware? I can't help you troubleshoot if I do not know what it is you are working with....

Unfortunately I do not have a whole lot of information on it. It is a LCD Touch Screen Kiosk with a small form factor motherboard and a via chipset. The screen connects via a small vga cable. It does have a dvd drive and ps2 keyboard and mouse connectors.
Inside it has a controller card for the monitor with DAVI written on it.

I can't really help you out if you can't give me any specs.

This one has the following specs:

* 1GHZ VIA CPU
* Mini ITX EPIA Motherboard
* 512MB RAM
* DVD Drive
* 60 gig 2.5 inch harddrive
* (2) USB ports
* (1) 10/100 Network Port
* (1) Serial Port
* (1) VGA Port
* (1) Parallel Port
* (2) PS2 Ports for keyboard and mouse
* (1) SVIDEO out
* (1) RCA Out Port
* Audio ports (mic, line in, and speaker out)
* 17" Touchscreen display

I am still looking for more information on it.

Can you pastebin your /var/log/messages and dmesg output?

Output of
and/or

might be useful. Need to find out what the hardware actually is, makes, models, chipsets and such.

Thanks, I knew i was forgetting something.

Is there just the one cable? If there's only a VGA cable connecting the screen to the PC then it's not a touchscreen. Or it's a touchscreen which isn't fully connected. Or it's some sort of unusual/propriety wiring on the VGA cable. But then presumably you know it is a touchscreen because you've, well, touched it, right?

Maybe posting some pictures of the thing might help, you never know someone might recognise it. Sounds like a potentially exciting piece of kit.


To jump ahead a bit, I've been tinkering recently with Ubuntu running on a device with a 7" touch screen and it's made me realise that there is a big difference between an interface designed for use with a keyboard and mouse that you happen to be able to poke with your finger and an interface that has been designed for use with a touchscreen. You may want to bear that in mind when looking at what software to use with them. This may not be so much of an issue on a 17" screen as it is on a 7" 800x480 one though.

I've heard talk of a Ubuntu Tablet Edition in the works but don't know or if it will appear or if it will appear. I can't find any solid info on it just now.

well I lied on the connection as it turns out. There is a board that is stuck to the back of the monitor which looks like a sort of video board and that has a connection to another board that is stuck to the bottom of the case. The long skinny board stuck to the bottom of the case has buttons on it such as power and up and down and such. Then there is also the vga cable that connects the card on the back of the monitor to the motherboard.

I will try to post some pictures tomorrow if I get a chance. With all the snow and everything our mid-term exams keep getting shifted and everything is out of whack right now.

I do not have ubuntu on it right now but windows xp embeded which is what came with it. I gave the ubuntu one to my co-worker to play with.