I was WRONG about Linux & touchscreens: GNOME, Plasma Mobile and Phosh tested

Channel:

The Linux Experiment

Subscribers:

390,000

Published on February 19, 2025 1:01:03 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCSs4CbxZHk

Game:

Counter-Strike: Source (2004)

Duration: 0:00

62,639 views

4,277

Download the Enterprise Leader’s Guide to Cybersecurity Resilience for free: https://tuxcare.com/downloadables/the-enterprise-leaders-guide-to-cybersecurity-resilience/?utm_campaign=The Linux Experiment

👏 SUPPORT THE CHANNEL:
Get access to:
a Daily Linux News show
a weekly patroncast for more thoughts
your name in the credits

YouTube:
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thelinuxexperiment

Or, you can donate whatever you want:
https://paypal.me/thelinuxexp
Liberapay: https://liberapay.com/TheLinuxExperiment/

👕 GET TLE MERCH
Support the channel AND get cool new gear:

Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
00:51 Sponsor: TuxCare
02:11 GNOME revisited
06:16 Plasma Mobile
09:31 Phosh
12:22 Parting Thoughts
14:00 Support the channel



Ok, when you're wrong, you're wrong. And I was completely wrong about GNOME and touchscreens. In my previous video, I blasted GNOME for being barely usable with touchscreens, because, well, it was, in my experience.

Turns out, I didn't go deep enough. This was all Ubuntu's fault.

GNOME
I went with Fedora 41 and its very default version of GNOME. On Fedora, I had tiling working by just dragging windows to the edges, something that Ubuntu didn't have, likely due to their own tiling extension they added, that doesn't work well.

I also could long press on elements of the desktop or inside of apps, and I got a stable right click menu that didn't disappear after I lifted my finger, again, something that didn't work inside Ubuntu, a-even with all the drivers installed.


I also could open menubars inside of apps that have them. What didn't work though, was the onscreen keyboard inside of KDE applications.

Another thing that didn't work on Ubuntu, but did in Fedora is swiping on the app grid, anywhere.

Plasma Mobile

I used Fedora's Plasma mobile spin for this one, and It's a very good experience.
You basically have a simple app grid, with mobile optimized applications. They all open full screen, and you have an Android like button row to handle all of that: the square to open a lit of all installed apps, that you can swipe up to dismiss and close, the plasma logo to go back to the app grid, and the close button / fold keyboard button.


Swiping from the top edge opens quick settings, that let you access a LOT of the settings you'd need, it's great, apart from the scrolling test inside each one which makes it look very busy. I guess it's aimed more at smartphones, and doesn't resize that well on bigger devices.

Default apps are perfectly sized and suited for touch, with clear interfaces, easy to use, big buttons, it's nice. Opening full size desktop apps also works well, with menubars even being resized and enlarged, although for large menus, it makes it a bit annoying to navigate.

Phosh

Phosh is installable on fedora, so that's what I did, and I could just pick it as an option from the login manager. I won't go over it for too long because it's basically just the GNOME shell with very small adaptations, and it's clearly not meant for laptops / big screens.
So, you start in an app grid, which is worse than GNOME's default grid, at least on a big screen, with less padding, and a background that isn't blurred or darkened, meaning legibility is very low. These apps don't open fullscreen, so you can still tile them, which is a plus, and they're mostly all just the default GNOME apps in there.

After that, swiping from the top edge of the screen brings the notifications and quick settings that occupy the entire screen, which is unnecessary àon a big screen like this, but coherent on a smartphone. These toggles can be expanded using the mobile settings app that phosh comes with.

Conclusion

So, first, mea maxima culpa for GNOME: it is indeed very good, it's just htat Ubuntu destroys its touch capabilities with changes they make to GNOME. Second, Plasma Mobile is really nice, even on 2 in 1s, although I still prefer the regular KDE Plasma for a 2 in 1?. Plasma mobile is excellent for tablets, and presumable for phones, if they mange to run it as competently and smoothly as this laptop does.
Finally, phosh is unsuitable IMO, for 2 in 1s, it just worse than the default vanilla GNOME, but it looks ok for smartphones.

Other Statistics