It’s been a while since I’ve posted any updates here, but I’ve been quite busy working with others on my team and elsewhere to bring multitouch to the desktop. We are currently developing the XInput 2.1 extension to the X server to bring multitouch capabilities. If all goes according to plan, we will be bringing true multitouch to Ubuntu in the form of a pre-release version of XInput 2.1 in Ubuntu 11.04!
For those interested in playing around, I’ve been maintaining a ppa with the changes. I would caution people against testing things out unless they are developers, merely because it could be buggy and break your system, and there’s not a lot of cool stuff to show off quite yet. However, if you are still interested in having a look, please see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Multitouch/XDevelopment. Hopefully we will be landing the work into Ubuntu in February, shortly after Ubuntu Natty Alpha 2 is released.
Right now we have the base of multitouch implemented. We are solidifying the mechanisms for one window to receive an event, decide that it doesn’t care, and then pass it on to another window. Pointer emulation for touchscreens is also being worked on.
I can’t wait to see what multitouch programs (and games too!) we’ll see on Ubuntu!