The solderless 7” touchscreen kit from Hongkong-based Ebay seller Kiddshop is favoured by many EEE PC users, but it is only supported for Windows XP. There are however, drivers available to get the touchscreen working and keep the pre-installed Xandros system.
The Linux drivers on the CD supplied by Kiddshop are a confusing mess of files and archives, which are difficult to install for all but the most experienced Linux gurus. Thankfully EEEuser forum member gfoot has provided a modified kernel module which makes the touchscreen work under Xandros.
Open a command shell (press Ctrl+Alt+T) and go into superuser mode (that avoids having to type sudo in front of every command)
sudo su
Go to the directory where you unpacked the driver archive file
cd /home/user/TouchKit/
Copy the driver to the system directory
cp egalax_drv.so /usr/lib/xorg/modules/input
Next, create a device node by which the kernel module communicates with the touchscreen controller
mknod /dev/tkpanel0 c 180 180
Note, the modified kernel module is programmed to talk to exactly that device (tkpanel0), other device IDs will not work with gfoot's tkusb.ko module
Open a command shell (press Ctrl+Alt+T) and go into superuser mode (that avoids having to type sudo in front of every command)
sudo su
Go to the directory where you saved the downloaded tkusb.ko file and copy it to the system directory
cp tkusb.ko /lib/modules/2.6.21.4-eeepc/kernel/drivers/usb/input
Deactivate the original touchscreen module by renaming it
cd /lib/modules/2.6.21.4-eeepc/kernel/drivers/usb/input mv usbtouchscreen.ko usbtouchscreen.ko_OFF
After these modifications to kernel modules you now re-generate the module dependencies:
depmod -a
This command needs to be issued every time you move a .ko file or install a new one.
The new kernel module needs to be loaded on startup. The kernel needs to have loaded the module before X11 starts up. There are a number of ways to ensure the loading of a kernel module on startup. One of those methods - editing the /etc/modules files - has shown to work and is presented here:
Open the modules configuration in a text editor
cp -p /etc/modules /etc/modules_ORIG kwrite /etc/modules
Add a new line with the single word tkusb at the end of the text and save the file
Now, reboot the machine
When the machine is back up, open a shell again and check which kernel modules are loaded. Type
lsmod
Look for a line that starts with usbcore and check that is contains the word tkusb. By restricting the output (using grep) to lines containing the word tkusb it is easier to see the changes:
Type:
lsmod | grep tkusb
And you should get something like this:
tkusb 5136 1 usbcore 91928 9 uvcvideo,usb_storage,libusual,ehci_hcd,uhci_hcd,usbhid,tkusb
If the module is loaded, all is ready to continue.
Note, that at this point you haven't verified that the modules loaded at the right phase of the boot process (it needs to be laoded before X11 starts up). However, the method of configuring the extra modules in the /etc/modules file has shown to do that correctly.
Hint by gfoot from http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?pid=250352#p250352: The tkusb.ko file can actually go anywhere in /lib/modules/2.6.21.4-eeepc, provided you run “sudo depmod” after moving it.
This method was first detailed in this forum post http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=18677 by chewy
sudo cp -p /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf_ORIG
sudo kwrite /etc/X11/xorg.conf
find the Section “ServerLayout”. See the 3 InputDevice lines? Add a line that says
InputDevice "EETI" "SendCoreEvents"
(this tells the system about a new device named EETI (the touchscreen))
there should still be an EndSection to close this section. Looks like this when you’re done:
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Xandros"
Screen 0 "Screen1"
InputDevice "keyboard"
InputDevice "mouse"
InputDevice "synaptics"
InputDevice "EETI" "SendCoreEvents"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "mouse"
Driver "mouse"
...
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "EETI"
Driver "egalax"
Option "Device" "/dev/tkpanel0"
Option "Parameters" "/var/lib/egalax.cal"
Option "ScreenNo" "0"
EndSection
If you've made a mistake with the xorg.conf file by introducing invalid characters or lines that cannot be read by the system your system may not boot up again. Check this thread for methods to recover from that: Restore xorg.conf file using Knoppix at http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=25139
By now you should have all the software in place to run the touchscreen. It is time to connect it and check the communication
lsusb
The output should look like this:
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 0000:0000 Bus 004 Device 002: ID 0eef:0001 D-WAV Scientific Co., Ltd eGalax TouchScreen Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000 Bus 005 Device 003: ID 0951:1606 Kingston Technology Bus 005 Device 001: ID 0000:0000 Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000 Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
The second line (with eGalax Touchscreen) is what you're looking for. If that shows up, your touchscreen should be ready to go.
If not run these checks:
cat /proc/acpi/asus/camera
sudo echo 1 > /proc/acpi/asus/camera
/dev/tkpanel0 device. Typesudo xxd -g1 /dev/tkpanel0
and run your finger over the screen. You should get a stream of numbers appearing in the shell window. Once you get that you're ready to calibrate the screen
Open a command shell window and go to the directory where you unpacked the driver archive and run the calibration tool (as superuser)
cd /home/user/TouchKit sudo ./TouchKit &
If the program window opens without an erro you are nearly finished. Open the “Tool” tab and go through the 4Pts Cal and 25Pts Cal setup routines.
Download this archive of icon files touchkit_icons.zip unpack it in your home directory
NOTE: The original artwork for these icons came from this image http://www.sxtouch.com/images/touchkit.jpg
Open a command shell (Ctrl+Alt+T) and change to the directory where you unzipped the archive:
cd touchkit_icons sudo cp *.png /opt/xandros/share/AsusLauncher/
Download Easy Mode Editor (emeditor) from http://download.projectsakura.com/eeepc/emeditor.html
Check the EmEditor section on http://wiki.eeeuser.com/howto:customizeeasymodeicons if you're unsure how to install the program.
Activate the changes by rebooting, restarting X11 (Ctrl+Alt+Backspace) or simply by choosing a different background scheme in the Personalization Tool.
Once correctly installed, the icon will look like this (on an already customized Easy Mode Settings tab):
Any post by forum user gfoot :) - the man who made this possible and helped along the way!
The original forum posts:
Forum user gospeed.racer (http://forum.eeeuser.com/profile.php?id=4888) builds internal USB hubs, which allow users of model 701 4G (the one with a webcam) to connect a touchscreen AND the webcam at the same time. Other people in the Hack and Modifications forum have built similar hubs.
