If you need a driver for other environments, such as a different graphics manager or different processor we can update our driver to match your requirements but there will be a cost involved on a time and materials basis.

Distributions

With 5.1.xxx we have introduced a new distribution identification process to minimise the user interaction during install.  When installing on a recognised distribution the associated installation script is invoked. For unrecognised distributions a generic install script is invoked that should work for most modern Linux distributions but this cannot be guaranteed.

Important notes:

1.       If a distribution is not recognised by the installer it lists the distribution identification details.  Please let us know what is listed so we can set up an appropriate installation script.

2.       Ununtu 15.x and Redhat 7 use a different start-up method for processes and this is incorporated in the specific install scripts created for these distributions.  The generic install script is still using the old start-up method so it is likely that if used on newer distributions then after reboot the touch may not be working.

At time of writing we have tested on the following distributions:

Important Note – The table above shows the list of distributions that have been tested or reported as ok.  However, given the number of Linux distributions it is impossible to guarantee that our install and/or driver will work in all environments or in all distributions, even if the same underlying kernel, X interface and desktop manager is in use or if a distribution is based on one of the supported distributions. To this end we have selected a number of main stream distributions to regularly test our latest driver and to try and keep the driver current, these being ubuntu, Fedora-Core, CentOS/Redhat and openSuse. Issues with our driver in any other distribution may incur a cost to investigate.

Linux Notes

We have observed some general and distribution specific issues that are documented below.

If you are using the graphical install on ‘tested distributions’ then, where possible, we have catered for the known issues in the individual Linux distribution setup scripts.

If you are manually installing, or installing on untested distributions or there are issues after install on tested distributions then please read the appropriate section below for your distribution:

Driver priority

Distribution

CD Distribution

We believe the best approach is to expand the contents of the linuxupdd.tgz file to the CD ensuring the permissions on the extracted files are preserved.  The end user should then be able to run the installer directly from the CD.  Please test before creating many copies!

Installation notes

1.       Please uninstall earlier versions of the UPDD software.

2.    Different installs exist for 32 and 64 bit processors. Ensure you have the correct build to match your processor otherwise an error will occur. Installing 64 bit on 32 bit processor gives:

3.       By default the driver is configured to post touch data to the system via the uinput interface. The installer will check the common locations for this interface and will issue a warning if not found:

4.    The driver utilises its own private copy of QT4 development lib. If the Linux system already has a QT4 lib in use this can prevent installation and will abort, as shown in this example:



We think QT4 may be used by the KDE Windows manager so installed with KDE you may encounter this problem.

To see the actual issue causing the installation to fail run the setup thus:

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=./opt/tbupddlx:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
./opt/tbupddlx/dcu /setup



In this particular case enter the following commands before running setup

cd ./opt/tbupddlx
mkdir QtLibs && mv *Qt*.so* QtLibs
cd ../..

this removes the UPDD private version of Qt. It may I also be necessary to remove qt from the updd install folder – in our tests we did but we  don't think this step is  necessary.

This is likely to be OK as long as the QT4 lib in place is compatible with the QT4 version used by UPDD although this cannot be guaranteed.

5.    The driver software has a number of dependencies, such as the NAS sub system for generating sounds on touch or during calibration. If these are missing the install may fail and display

$sudo ./setup
Processing
Install failed

In this case run ‘sudo apt-get install –qq nas’ to install nas and then try the install again.

6.    Peal script language issues
The installer uses a Perl script which we believe is a standard component of Linux but can easily be installed if required.

However, running the installer on a Korean system with some form of language corruption gave the following error:
Processing...
perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
        LANGUAGE = (unset),
        LC_ALL = (unset),
        LANG = "ko_KR.UTF-8"
The customer had to reinstall the language as follows on a Ubuntu 12.04 system before the Perl script would successfully run;
system settings -> Personal(Language Support) -> Select English -> Install/Remove Language

7.    Customising the supplied package

Setup script
The supplied compressed file contains a setup shell script. The setup shell script may be manually updated to contain any commands that may be needed prior to running the main setup process, such as the installation of Perl or any missing dependencies.

The modified package can be bundled as a new tgz file if required for distribution. 

If you wish to create a new package you should first extract the contents as usual but to an empty folder, modify the contents then use the command 

tar –czvf mynewtarname.tgz .

note the command above ends space dot 

Driver settings
The setup package will create UPDD settings file tbupdd.ini.  This contains the default driver, controller and calibration settings. To install with user defined custom settings we now allow end users to customise settings in a file - extra.ini. This file was previously embedded in the setup for customised builds.  On Linux systems the extra.ini file can be embedded in the installer (tgz) file with the path ./opt/tbupddlx/extra.ini allowing most settings to be customised by an integrator.

This will allow, for example, calibration data to be created from a calibrated system, placed in the custom file, and used in subsequent installs.

8.    Segmentation fault: We observed an installer error that was issued at the time the graphics dialog was being displayed (from program DCU) to list the devices being supported in the package.  This may be related to the QT lib issues described in Note 4 above. If this issue is observed or suspected then running the installer in silent mode (setup –s) will skip the display of the GUI dialog.

Alternately you can edit the appropriate installation script to remove the lines that execute the DCU and causing the error.

9.    Utility shortcuts (symlinks): If the distribution uses KDE or Gnome windows manager the installation procedure will attempt to** create desktop shortcuts to UPDD utility programs. ** The method used to create the shortcuts may not work in all distributions

When the system has restarted and user log in is complete there are a number of ways to configure the driver.

·         There may be two new icons on the desktop, Console and Calibrate, which can be used to change driver settings and calibrate the touchscreen respectively.

·         On systems where the icons are not seen then a Terminal program should be executed and the user should type “/opt/tbupddlx/upddconsole” to run the Console, and /opt/tbupddlx/upddcalib” to run the Calibration program.

·         Alternatively manually create Linux shortcuts to the UPDD Console and Calibration program.

Installation

Please check out installation notes above before starting install.

Installation of UPDD basically requires the driver files to be copied to a UPDD application folder, installing library files, creating control files in the appropriate locations, creating shortcuts to the calibration and settings utilites and auto launching the various processes.

UPDD provides a number of installation scripts to perform the above and these are invoked by the setup installation program. These scripts provide tailoring of the default package to the specific requirements of a given distribution

As Linux is very flexible and can be used in many different ways, these scripts are intended for mainstream distributions, where a standard Linux installation is performed, with default selections. If you use a non-standard installation you might need to implement a strategy to run the updd software as required. The post installation scripts are provided in the updd installation package and these can be used as a guide. You can of course repackage these to provide a customized UPDD package.

In most cases you will need copy the contents of the UPDD package to a suitable folder location and perform the following:

•              Auto start Tbupddwu – the user mode driver

•              Auto start aidaemon – the driver’s daemon process used to detect rotation automatically and adjust calibration.

•              By default the driver interfaces to the system via the Virtual Device touch interface.  Only if this interface does not work or is unavailable do you also need to launch the user mode X interface module tblinuxmouse.

•              If required, create desktop shortcuts to UPDD Calibration and UPDD Console

•              Register the QT4 library

This section describes the different installation options and the changes made to the system as part of the installation and covers the following topics:

Setup installation Procedure
The main installation package is held within the compressed file called linuxupdd_nn.nn.nnn_xx.tgz, where nn.nn.nnn is the UPDD release number and xx is the processor support, 32 or 64 bit. Please ensure you have the correct setup file to match your processor’s architecture.

Copy the file into a directory other than “/opt” or “/” such as a user’s home directory on the Linux system, change to that directory, then decompress it by using the command  “tar  zxvf  linuxupdd_nn.nn.nnn.tgz”.

At this point you will have a setup shell script and the UPDD application folder will be created containing the driver’s various support files.

Installation of the driver must be performed as the "root user". It is usually possible to run with root privileges by typing command "su root" or preceding the setup command with “kdesu” or “sudo” as described here but we have found on some systems this is not sufficient in which case you must log on at system start as root. Note that on some systems “sudo” does not allow the installer to work and you must use either “su” or, “kdesu”. In cases where the installer fails because the installer dialogs do not open try the command ‘Sux’ as this utilises a wrapper around su that transfers a user’s X credentials.

Important - Do not decompress the software in the root directory or “/opt/” as the install will fail.

To install the software open a terminal window and “./setup” as a root user, see above. This will launch the setup shell script that will in turn launch the setup program.
Important note: the ‘setup’ program is extracted directly into the extraction directory and is not located in the ./opt/tbupddlx subdirectory just created.

The Setup program will attempt to identify the distribution and if recognised will invoke the associated installation script as seen below. In this case the installer has recognised Debian 7:

To complete the installation:

·         From the device list dialog select the touch device or, if it is a PnP device (USB), optionally leave the PnP mechanism to pick up the device(s).

·         Install scripts can invoke question dialogs, such as ‘OK to enable USB file system’.  Answer these dialogs as appropriate.

For general installation issues please refer to the Installation notes below.

Once the install has completed and all being well the touch should now be active albeit not calibrated.  If the cursor does not react and calibration fails then try rebooting the system.  If touch is still not working after install and reboot please refer to the troubleshooting section below.

Unrecognised distributions

If the install does not recognise the distribution it will show the identification information it found.

For unrecognised distributions a generic install script is invoked that should work for most modern Linux distributions but this cannot be guaranteed.

Please email us the distribution in use and the identification information listed and indicate the success or otherwise of the generic script.  Based on this information we will create a detection script for the distribution.

Script utilsation

The structure of the installation scripts are documented here. Should the installation fail you may be able to create you own scripts using these as a template and re-embed in the compressed software package. If possible send us a copy so they can be utilised in future installations.

Silent Install

The setup program offers a silent install option –s to suppress all GUI dialogs.

Terminal output is still seen but this can be hidden by standard Linux redirection.

Manual Install

We highly recommend you install using the setup installer. If for any reason this is not possible we have documented the steps needed to manually install the driver in both a standard Linux distribution and in a minimal embedded environment.

Driver Notes

General

The driver is installed such that should it crash it will automatically be restarted.

For serial devices the driver handles the serial device via standard COM port names (/dev/ttySnn) or USB to serial adaptors (/dev/ttyUSBn), so to use a serial device with a different name it is required to create a symbolic link to one of these port types.  In the UPDD serial dropdown you have a choice of COMn for hardware serial ports (maps to /dev/ttysnn-1 (e.g COM1 = TTYS0)) or AdaptorN for virtual serial ports (maps to /dev/ttyUSBn-1 (e.g Adaptor1 = TTYUSB0)) created via a Serial to USB adaptor.

Following install, all configured UPDD devices will be set to control the pointer on the first monitor. In a multi monitor environment invoke the UPDD Console - Hardware dialog to configure multi monitor and/or touch devices. The UPDD Console can also be used to add additional non PnP devices (e.g serial) after installation, PnP devices (e.g. USB) will automatically be discovered.  See the Multi monitor and multi device documentation for further information.

Spawned processes

Following installation the following processes should be seen from the command “ps aux | grep tb”:

root      1209  0.0  0.0  11324  1360 ?        S    08:32   0:00 /bin/sh /opt/tbupddlx/startupdd
root      1211  0.0  0.0   3780   296 ?        Ss   08:32   0:00 startpar -f -- tbupdd
root      7477  0.4  0.3  97064  7156 ?        Sl   08:59   0:00 /opt/tbupddlx/tbupddwu
canto     7635  0.1  0.3  88720  7076 ?        Sl   08:59   0:00 /opt/tbupddlx/aidaemon

Folder structure

Following installation the following folder structure will have been created/updated on your Linux system:

/opt/tbupddlx/*

Contains the ini file, calib gif files, etc

/usr/local/lib or /usr/lib

Libraries used by the driver

libtbapi32.a

or

libtbapi64.a

libACE.so.5.6.2

libQt3Support.so.4.8.1',

libQtCore.so.4.8.1',

libQtGui.so.4.8.1',

libQtNetwork.so.4.8.1',

libQtSql.so.4.8.1',

libQtXml.so.4.8.1',

/etc/init.d/tbupdd

/etc/rc2.d/S90tbupdd

/etc/rc3.d/S90tbupdd

/etc/rc5.d/S90tbupdd

These automatically load the daemon on system boot.

Desktop and application touch interaction

The driver receives all incoming touches from the touch screen which are then dispatched to the system and applications and depending on the touch interfaces being used will be processed in various different ways.

Depending on the distribution in use the driver will either post touch data to the single touch X interface or the single touch uinput interface and this should result in touch movement when the screen is touched due to the X graphical interface processing the co-ordinate and pen data. In many cases this will satisfy simple touch usage.  However, there are a number of touch interfaces that can be utilized with our driver, as described below:

System interfaces

There is no single standard for posting touch data into the Linux kernel as there are a number of different ‘touch interfaces’ available.

Currently, the driver utilises two system level interfaces to post touch data into the system; a Virtual touch device interface that post data to the kernel input subsystem or the user mode X interface to post touch data to X.  The UPDD Console, Click Mode dialog indicates the interface to use:

Very important note: We have found that in Ubuntu 15.04 if a multi touch device is disconnected a system crash in X occurs and the user is forced to log in again. 
As UPDD creates a virtual multi touch device, when this logically disconnects this error will occur. This crash may occur if you change the Extended touch / Multi-touch checkboxes above.  We believe this to be a bug in Ubuntu 15.04 which hopefully will be addressed in a future release.

These settings dictate the interface to use as follows (and show how to manually set these settings if required):

Both interfaces are further described below.

Virtual Device with both single and multi-touch interface

UPDD version 5.1.x implements a virtual touch device to post touch data. This interface method should satisfy both X and touch event driven services and applications and fits in to the Linux input stack schematic as follows:

The Virtual Touch Device replies on ‘uinput’ support being part of the Linux kernel. Uinput offers a user mode bridge to the Linux input subsystem and was introduced in Linux kernel 2.6.xx with multi-touch support introduced in approx 2011 with kernel release 2.6.3x and should be available for most standard distributions. The install script (setup) will print a message on the console if uinput is not available and may need to be installed.

The uinput virtual touch interface was not found in the following locations

    /dev/uinput

    /dev/input/uinput

    /dev/misc/uinput

Please check distribution documents for instructions to enable this interface

Or set the updd setting virtualinputpath to the correct location for this system

eg: /opt/tbupddlx/upddenv tbutils nodevice setting virtualinputpath <path>

The driver creates either a single touch or multi-touch virtual device depending on the UPDD Console, Click Mode, Extended touch settings. The driver also creates an additional virtual device to pass right click requests when using UPDD Interactive touch click mode of operation.

Using the lsinput command you can view the UPDD virtual input device(s). On most systems LSinput is not installed by default. Under ubuntu/debian lsinput is part of the input-utils package. To install it, run the command “sudo apt-get install input-utils”. Under other Linux distributions the command for installing LSinput may be different.

Now run ‘sudo lsinput’ to list the devices (note the event number will vary between systems):

If all is ok then X will recognise the virtual devices and this can be confirmed by using the “xinput list” command

As shown in this example two UPDD devices should be listed. If the driver is configured to use a single touch virtual device then the “UPDD multi touch” device listed below is replaced by “UPDD single touch”

Uinput notes

1)      It is important to acknowledge that the virtual device implements a solution for native multi-touch support not MPX. MPX provides multiple independent pointers (mouse cursors) at the windowing system level.

2)      Multiple interfaces via the uinput device
The uinput device, when configured for multi-touch use, is used to post both single and multi-touch data such that both types of system requests are satisfied. Single touch data is posted in a different manner to multi-touch data (even when a single touch is in use) so all touches result in two posting on the uinput device to satisfy both single and multi-touch system requests.

UPDD can use uinput to create either a single touch or a multi touch virtual device.  The single touch device is useful on systems that do not recognise, or have problems working with a multi touch device.  In practice uinput support varies even on some recent distributions, so on some distributions the multi touch device does not work at all (e.g. Ubuntu 10:04 LTS) and some do not even support the single touch mode (e.g. Fedora).  For this reason UPDD allows switching between single touch and multi touch uinput devices and a direct X (single touch only) interface.

For distributions we have tested an appropriate default will be set by the installer.

Multi-monitor consideration

When using uinput in a multi-monitor configuration we announce an axis in the full range needed to cover all the configured monitors and then send touch events to the co-ordinate range appropriate to the monitor position. E.g. if a range of 0..1000 covers a single screen then the range of a 2^nd screen is set to 1000..2000 and the posted events in this range map to the 2^nd screen.  It is our understanding that for this to work correctly you require X 1.13 and above.

Multi-Touch testing

Multi-touch support within a Windows Manager will be dependant on the level of support built into the Windows Manager.  Our tests were conducted with ubuntu and the gesture aware Unity Windows Manager (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Multitouch). In this distribution device test software showed the touch device and reported single and multi-touch input and both X and Unity gestures worked as expected.

Testing in openSuSe 12.2, kernel 3.4, the supplied test software did not show single or multi-touch input albeit the single touch X interface worked well which implies that this interface is likely to be working in this distribution.

Multi-touch and gesture support within an application is very much dependant on how the multi-touch support has been implemented:

In our tests to show the multi-touch mechanics are working as expected we tested the simple QT based multi-touch drawing and gesture application, referenced above, compiled under QT5 and run on ubuntu 13:10.  With this combination it worked as expected and proved that the UPDD data input to the uinput interface ‘works’ as expected.

Currently under Linux there is no definitive definition of multi-touch support other then to say it can be achieved if the right components are in place.

There are utilities, such as evtest and mtdev-test, which can be used to show certain device information handled by the multi-touch device.

User mode X interface

X is the standard windowing system used in Linux. When running Linux with a graphical interface this will always be present and the driver can use a direct interface to X to support touch in cases where uinput support is not available or incomplete.

We have discovered that uinput is not always available or is not a standard component on some distributions and therefore this interface can be used as an alternative touch interface. In earlier versions of the driver we utilised a module tblinuxmouse to implement the X interface but it proved difficult to find a generic method that worked in all distributions to load at startup. With the release of version 5.1.1124 we now utilise a script /opt/tbupddlx/xhostenable which allows the X interface to work. The xhostenable script is invoked from our daemon process ‘aidaemon’. It should be noted that when utilising the X interface touch is not available until the daemon process is running and the xhostenable script has been executed, therefore touch does not work on the login screen in the current implementation. Because of this limitation we have set the uinput interface as the default for distribution where it is known to work only defaulting to X if the distribution does not, by default, contain the uinput modules.

A Linux system administrator can take the contents of the xhostenable script and run it during system startup if touch is required earlier in the system startup sequence.

Important security note. The X interface requires that the driver (tbupddwu) has access to the X session. This process runs under the local root account. In some scenarios this might be considered a security risk. This access is set by the xhostenable script

To prevent this mode of operation this script can be deleted, or edited to implement an alternate strategy. In the default implementation tbupddwu runs in the root account to allow access to the libusb interface. It might be possible in some situations to set up access to libusb without root access.

Application interfaces

In most cases you will be using X or the virtual device interface to interact with the desktop or specific application. However, if you are using an alternative interface, e.g. TUIO or UPDD API, and neither standard system interface is required then you can disable the ‘mouse port interface’ or indicate that the incoming data stream is not to be processes as touch data as follows

Summary

The driver receives all the touches from the touch device(s) which are then available on various interfaces.

Using the UPDD Virtual device component all touches will be posted to the Linux input subsystem via the uinput interface.  This input method will satisfy most pending touch events, including X (mouse emulation), hence is the driver’s default system interface.

Using the X interface a single touch will be fed to X graphical layer to move the mouse cursor. 

Using UPDD TUIO server all touches will be broadcast to TUIO client applications

Applications using the UPDD read touch API will receive touches.

Driver Utilities

System tray item

Introduced in release 5.1.x the UPDD Menu bar item offers links to the main driver utilities:

In some Linux distributions, specifically Ubuntu and it derivatives, you may need to follow these directions to get the UPDD system tray icon to appear:

http://techpublic.net/linux/show-selected-apps-in-ubuntu-unitys-system-tray-with-dconf-editor-how-to/

Calibration

Calibration is a procedure used to align the pointer device with the graphical display area or desktop segment. When using the pointer device the mouse cursor should normally position itself under the stylus when it is in contact with the pointer device. If this is not the case then calibration will be required and can be invoked in a number of ways:

1)      UPDD system tray, Calibrate option (see above).

2)      UPDD Console, Calibrate Option

3)      Invoke from a terminal window and run the command /opt/tbupddlx/upddcalib
or
cd /opt/tbupddlx
./upddcalib

4)      Create a link to it (/opt/tbupddlx/upddcalibrate) using the window manager:

and touch the calibration crosses, or arrows, as they appear.

Calibration notes:

·         If the calibration screen does not cover the full desktop area see calibration notes above. Full calibration procedure information can be found in the Calibration document.

·         Calibration can be performed in any screen resolution and the calibration data held is relative to the screen resolution. However, if the screen resolution is changed then a new calibration will be required as currently we do not automatically track screen resolution changes.

·         If calibration cannot be activated when running as a root user then it is likely the user does not have permission to connect to the X server and as a consequence cannot run graphical programs.
The problem is that when starting an X session, the user is authenticated by X and given permission to connect to the server. When switching users by using "su", the new user no longer has the correct permission.

To overcome this type “xhost SI:localhost:root” or “xhost +” before running su to switch users.

Driver/Device settings – the UPDD Console

The UPDD Console defines the functionality of the pointer device(s) and the UPDD driver environment and can be invoked in a number of ways:

1)      Double click on the UPDD system tray option or single right click and select the Settings option.

2)      Invoke from a terminal window and run the command /opt/tbupddlx/upddconsole
or
cd /opt/tbupddlx
./upddconsole

3)      Create a link to it (/opt/tbupddlx/upddconsole) using the window manager:

and change the settings as required.

See the UPDD Console documentation and on-line help for further information.

All settings, including calibration data, are held in the UPDD settings file.

Test program

A simple test program is supplied to test the performance and accuracy of the touch device as handled by the UPDD driver.  It can be used to view stylus input from single and multi-touch devices.

Command Line interface

A command line utility is supplied that can be used to perform certain configuration or device type functions.

Serial port notes

Change serial port connection

The UPDD Console - Hardware tab allows the COM port name to be reassigned after installation.

Standard serial ports

If using a standard serial port, Select Com1, Com2 etc in the COM port selector. Serial ports should be registered in the system as ttySn which is mapped to our driver to COMn+1 (e.g. COM1 = ttyS0)

Serial to USB adaptors

If using a serial to USB adaptor, select Adaptor 1, Adaptor 2, etc in the COM port selector. This has only been tested with the Keyspan adaptors so far but the Linux documentation states that the interface is the same for all serial adaptors; hence UPDD should work for all serial/USB adaptors. Serial to USB adaptors should be registered within the system as ttyUSBn which is mapped by our driver to Adaptor n+1. (e.g Adaptor1 = ttyUSB0)

Serial port reassignment

The driver handles serial devices via standard COM port names (/dev/ttySnn) or USB to serial adaptors (/dev/ttyUSBn), so to use a serial device with a different name it is required to create a symbolic link to one of these port types.

Example: Assuming you have a serial port referenced as ttyC1P3 to be reassigned. You need to open a terminal with root privileges and type the following:

ln -s /dev/ttyC1P3 /dev/ttyUSB0 (for Adaptor 1)

or

ln -s /dev/ttyC1P3 /dev/ttyS0 (for com port 1)

You will then need to open up the UPDD Console and change the COM port for your device to "Adaptor 1" or “Com 1”.

Serial port testing

Should the serial port connection not be working there are a number of procedures to follow to help identify the problem as described in the knowledge base article here.

Serial port issues

One customer reported that the serial touch screen stopped working after the initial boot.  Further investigations showed that the root cause was the Bluetooth manager using the modem-manager to close all serial ports even though they had no Bluetooth devices on their system!!!

Uninstall

Automatic

Removal of the driver must be performed as the "root" user. It is usually possible to "become" the root user by typing command "su root" or preceding the setup command with “kdesu” or “sudo”, but we have found on some systems this is not sufficient in which case you must log on at system start as root. Note that on SuSE 10.3 and SLED 11 “sudo” does not allow the uninstaller to work and you must use either “su” or, optionally on SuSE 10.3, “kdesu”.

To uninstall the software open a terminal window and either use “su” or “kdesu” to become the root user then type “/opt/tbupddlx/uninstall”. Alternatively type “sudo /opt/tbupddlx/uninstall” and enter your password (not on SuSE 10.3 and SLED 11; see note above). This will launch the uninstall program:

To continue and remove the software click on “Uninstall”. To cancel, click “Cancel” and the system will remain unmodified.

Manual Uninstall

Type the following commands being careful to use the same case and spacing.

su

*Enter the root password*

rm -rf /tbupddlx *If this is mistyped, the whole system could be wiped.

rm /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/input/xf86_tbupddlx.o

For Systems using X11R6

rm /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/input/xf86_tbupddlx.o

For Systems using X11R7

rm /usr/lib/xorg/modules/input/xf86_tbupddlx_drv.so

rm /etc/rc.d/init.d/tbupddlx

rm /etc/rc.d/rc2.d/S90tbupddlx

rm /etc/rc.d/rc3.d/S90tbupddlx

rm /etc/rc.d/rc5.d/S90tbupddlx

Edit the file "/etc/X11/XF86Config-4" for Xfree86, or “/etc/X11/xorg.conf” for x.org and remove the following section:-

Section "InputDevice""

   Identifier "Updd0"

   Driver "xf86_tbupddlx"

   Option "Device" "/tbupddlx/comReadPipe"

EndSection

In the section that begins with:-

Section "ServerLayout"

Remove the line:-

InputDevice "Updd0" "SendCoreEvents"

Multi-monitor and multi-device support

Support for multiple monitors is covered in full in the multi-monitor and device document, Linux section.

Display rotation considerations

Linux supports rotated video modes for supported video cards under both Xfree86 and X.org. UPDD will work with rotated video and this is explained in detail in the separate rotate documentation.

Display resolution / calibration considerations

The calibration mapping is based on the screen resolution setting at the time of calibration so if the resolution is changed the calibration will be inaccurate. To cater for this you will need to manually recalibrate after changing video resolution.

Future releases of the driver may well introduce a daemon process to automatically monitor video resolution and adjust automatically but until such times as this is available manual intervention is required.

Mouse settings

Double click capabilities are affected by the system’s Mouse settings. To achieve a double click using the pointer device these settings need to cater for the type of device in use. A touch screen may well require different settings to that required by a mouse. The main setting that affects the ability to double click is the double click speed. If this is set too fast it may be impossible to produce a double click. Ensure this is set to an appropriate value in the mouse settings to allow for double clicks via a stylus. In this example the mouse settings screen is from the KDE Control Centre. Other window managers will have different ways of configuring the settings.

The UPDD Console, Click Mode dialog, System Mouse settings will invoke the Mouse settings for KDE and Gnome desktops, as shown in the following example:

Touch Utilities

Virtual Keyboards

A number of Virtual keyboards are available on the Web for Linux as detailed in the UPDD Virtual keyboard documentation.

Mouse Cursor

At the time of writing we are not aware of any specific end user utility to change the mouse cursor or turn it on/off.  Please contact us if you find such a suitable utility that we can document for other users.

Troubleshooting

Following successful installation and reboot of the system (if requested/required) the device should respond to UPDD calibration (a moving cursor does not always indicate UPDD driver is in control of the touch device). The key elements to check are:

·         The touch device is known to be working

• The device is plugged into the system and recognised by the OS.
• The driver is running
• The device is supported and is seen by the driver
• Touch data is being received from the device and made available on its API (driver utility program function as expected)
• The device is calibrated and associated with the correct desktop
• Touch data is being posted into the OS if using one of the standard input interfaces

Follow these steps to help identify the problem:

Check the device is seen by the system

If using a USB device, ensure the device is plugged in and listed in the Linux devices and also identify if the device listed (by Manufacturer, USB Vendor id and Product id) is that expected by the driver.

Check the device is seen by the driver

The UPDD Console will list the controller name in black text if it has connected to the USB device or serial port.

The text ‘No devices found’ will be displayed if none of the devices configured or supported are found on the system. Red text listing can be because a serial port is incorrectly defined or not available or a USB device is no longer connected. If a USB device is plugged in it may not be supported by the driver or the device is being handled by another 3rd party driver, such as the standard HID driver.

If using a serial device ensure the serial port is defined in the system and correctly set in the UPDD Console, Hardware dialog.

Ensure no other 3rd party drivers are trying to handle the device.

If you have just installed, try rebooting, especially if no name is listed in the console.

Check the driver is running

Use the command “ps ax | grep tbupddwu” to determine that the driver is running.

If it is loaded, see if the UPDD Console displays the error ‘No driver connection’ this indicates the API interface between the applications and the driver is failing.  This could indicate the driver is hung.

Check the driver is working

Invoke the UPDD test program and enter direct mode to see if touch data is being received by the driver and available on its API interface.

Check the device is calibrated and assigned to the correct desktop segment.

Defined the associated desktop (e.g. Monitor 1, Monitor 2 or Left half, Right Half etc) in the UPDD Console, Hardware dialog and then select calibrate.

Check interface components

If the system is configured to use one of the standard interface input methods to post touch data into the system ensure that the required components are present.  If using the X interface ensure that the process tblinuxmouse (ps ax | grep tblinuxmouse) is running. If using the Virtual device interface ensure uinput is part of the kernel. Try switching between the interfaces to see if either work.

Check the hardware is functioning

Utilise another OS if possible to prove the touch hardware is OK, such as plugging a HID touch device into a Windows 7 or 8 system.

Known issues

No cursor movement, only clicks at current cursor location

If using Uinput Interface there is a possibility that the distribution does not like the method in which we post both single and multi-touch data into the system via the same virtual device. We believe this to be a bug in the kernel with older distributions. 

Specifically, on Ubutntu 10.04 64 bit systems we have seen that only touch clicks are recognised, mouse movement (dragging) does not work and all clicks occur at the current mouse position.

Try switching between the interfaces to see if any work.

Current Limitations

UPDD was originally developed for Windows and has since been ported to other OS. Not all features have been ported to Linux, they include:

·         Dynamic detection of system language.

·         Serial port auto-detection

·         Interactive touch – visual notification of right click count down

·         Anchor mouse function

·         Light pen calibration (the white lines on black mode)

·         Toolbar actions

Contact

For further information or technical assistance please email the technical support team at technical@touch-base.com