Ubuntu Linux 11.04 Touchscreen-Friendly With Unity "Love Handles"

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With the popularity of tablets and smartphones, Linux isn’t behind with the times, as some popular mobile OSes are actually based on Linux. But how about desktop-bound Linux distributions? Are these touchscreen-friendly?

One such test of touchscreen-friendliness is the ease by which a user can manipuate windows onscreen. On a small device like a smartphone, this might not necessarily be a priority. But when you consider a desktop OS, you will need to give the user a more intuitive experience. It’s not just dragging and dropping anymore.

Ubuntu Linux‘ upcoming 11.04 release will have a feature that users with touchscreens will appreciate: love handles. The so-called love handles appear alongside a floating window, so that users can more easily resize and move an object. Drag any of the hands and the window will be resized from that particular edge (or corner). Drag the blog at the middle and the window can be moved.

The handles are available as a Compiz plugin and is included under 11.04′s default desktop manager, Unity. To those unfamiliar, Compiz is an add-on to Linux’ X-Windowing system that takes advantage of the GPU in making fluid and fancy graphics and transitions.