Hey all -
Well, hopefully there’s help to be had here, 'cause it sure as taxes ain’t coming from anywhere else.
I’ve a Panasonic CF-31 Toughbook, set up as LEAP and Windows 10; it works fine, EXCEPT:
The OEM for the touchscreen is Fujitsu; more on that later.
When going from one OS to the other, if I plan to use the touchscreen I then have to go into the BIOS and select the appropriate touchscreen mode - “touchscreen” or “tablet.”
Contrary to what’s on the web (Bob Jones and so on) only tablet mode will work in Windows; in touchscreen mode the Fujitsu calibrator won’t work, insisting that wherever I tap represents “invalid input,” and the Windows calibrator (and the OS itself) insist that no touchscreen is present. :sarcastic:
Unfortunately, in tablet mode it’s useless in Linux; wherever I touch the screen the cursor drags there instead of tapping - as though I’d moved the mouse with the left button held down rather that repositioning and then clicking. About as useful as an aluminium centre punch. :’(
Also available is “auto” mode, but in reality that always sets the supposedly flexible thing to tablet mode; Windows bias, methinks. Dumping BIOS data I find that the USB identifier for the bugger differs for each mode. Freaky.
I thought that perhaps I could write a programme for Windows which sets the correct Windows-friendly mode by sending a command sequence to the touchscreen, and another one for Linux to set the other mode.
However, this would require docs for the touchscreen, which would in turn start with a part number.
Panasonic will provide only their in-house part number rather than the number under which Fujitsu sold them the thing; this is useless when trying to get intrinsics out of Fujtsu. This is akin to the Chevrolet part number for a bolt, bearing or other item doing you no good whatsoever when talking to Midwest Fastener, Timken or whatever other OEM originally made and sold sold it to GM. Panasonic won’t provide any docs suited to writing drivers and claims not to understand my request, although they’d cheerily sell me another screen should I grow impatient and shoot this one. Requests that my missives go to their designers and programmers rather than their warehouse drones are ignored. >:(
Fujitsu claims that without a part number their hands are tied, even though the same touchscreen has been sold to and used by Panasonic from the first CF-28 in 2002 through the most recent CF-31, introduced in 2018 and still being sold by Panasonic. SOMEONE has to know what bleedin’ touchscreen they sold to Panasonic by the millions over a span two flippin’ DECADES.
So much for writing a programme to fix this.
So… since Windows cannot run in touchscreen mode, is there any way to get Linux (OpenSuSE with a modern X server) to work with the expletiving thing in tablet mode?
Please? Maybe? Ideas? Please…?