Microsoft PixelSense Gets Linux Touchscreen Support

Written by Michael Larabel in Microsoft on 24 November 2013 at 07:12 PM EST. 3 Comments
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The touchscreen on the Microsoft PixelSense (Surface 2.0) is now supported by the mainline Linux kernel.

A late input pull was merged today for the Linux 3.13 kernel and it provides a new driver for supporting the touchscreen of the Microsoft PixelSense. The PixelSense is Microsoft's interactive surface computing platform that combines multi-touch hardware, a 360-degree multi-user design, and an embedded version of Windows -- the table-top touch-screen experiences that were shown off some years ago. Samsung had put out the "SUR40" in 2011 built atop Microsoft's Surface 2.0 platform, which was renamed to PixelSense after Microsoft released their own, unrelated Surface tablet computer.

The Samsung SUR40 is designed for tables, counters, kiosks, and walls for an immersive touch-screen experience. The touch-screen is now supported by the mainline Linux kernel with the new SUR40 touch-screen input driver. However, it's unlikely you will run into one of these SUR40 PixelSense devices given that their pricing starts at around eight thousand dollars.

Here's the commit adding the PixelSense input driver to the mainline Linux kernel. The SUR40/PixelSense input driver is based on the USB Linux skeleton driver, the Apple USB multi-touch driver, and the generic HID multi-touch drivers.
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