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Oooh, ooh, ooh… look what just arrived! I’ve been waiting almost a year for it and boy was it worth the wait. My new Linux laptop is a… tablet? Yep. The StarLabs StarLite.
Oh and the screen on this thing! 
So, first issue, popovers (eg., drop-down menus, app menus, etc.) don’t work on GTK 4 apps (like System Settings in GNOME) on touchscreen devices.
Three-year old bug here: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/issues/1523
I guess that means tablets are not currently supported under GNOME.
Will see if KDE Plasma works on touchscreen Linux tablets.
*sigh!*
Update: Issue fixed in GNOME. Works in latest Fedora (tested w. Silverblue). Ubuntu doesn’t. HT @sonny
@aral I haven't tried PureOS myself but given that it's designed to run on Librem phones it's hopefully usable on touchscreen, and I think it's based on gtk.
@aral it should be fixed in a recent GNOME version, complain to your distro
Fedora 40 should work just fine
@sonny The bug’s still listed as open but, sure, I will test with latest Fedora. Starlabs is shipping with latest Ubuntu and a number of other operating systems. Will let them know to at least not ship Ubuntu until they update.
@aral This worth anything? This is on my Asus with a touchscreen.
@Professor_Stevens All good. @sonny informed me that the bug has been fixed and I can confirm that it is in the latest Fedora Silverblue.
Cool.
Now, I realize FOSS is all someone's passion project, so I don't want to be a pest. But I was kind of stunned to see that GNOME only supports two zoom sizes, 100% and 200% (which might as well be labeled "much too small" and "way too big").
A workaround is to use the "large type" setting in Accessibility. But people are telling me I can get more zoom levels if I turn on some "experimental" flag.
Seriously? Zooming is experimental for GNOME in 2024?
It's fractional scaling, not zooming.
I agree we desperately need it and we are working on it but if you think you can do better, you're welcome to join the party :)
People keep complaining to a bunch of (mostly) volunteers about an underfunded project used by multimillion revenue companies 
@Professor_Stevens @sonny A big part of the problem is hardware vendors who don’t understand what resolution to implement for different screen sizes.
Case in point: the display on my new StarLite is 12.5" and supports a resolution of 2,880×1,920 which is absolutely perfect at 200%. Just gorgeous. (I believe StarLabs had an issue with sourcing this panel so future panels will be slightly lower resolution sadly, at least for the moment.)
@aral This may reveal my ignorance, but can Windows or MacOS be installed and run on a tablet? Or do tablets have to run a tablet-specific OS?
@rspfau Not that you should install Windows on anything but Microsoft have Surface tablets that run some mutation of the OS. You’d likely have issues just installing stock Windows on a tablet. (See first point.) MacOS is proprietary as all fuck so, no, it won’t run on anything but a Mac without much hackery (but Apple will happily sell you an iPad).
Both GNOME and Plasma, however, follow a responsive approach and support touch so they will run on tablets like this one. (To various degrees.)
@aral thanks for the update
Please complain to your operating system or hardware vendor in the future 
Really anyone who makes money of this product.
Not to a community of (mostly) volunteers.
@sonny I’m not complaining to anyone. I’m sharing my experiences. *breathe, breathe*
OK, thanks for your help.
Take care + all the best.
(snac2 acct) @aral@mastodon.ar.al
