Thinking about picking up one of those newfangled multitouch displays for your netbook, but holding off because you're worried that there won't be support for multitouch gestures under Linux? It looks like there's nothing to worry about.

When Canonical broke the news recently that Ubuntu 10.10 will include uTouch 1.0, a multitouch and gesture stack, it caused a flurry of excitement about the Linux release's potential for use in tablets.

Multitouch interfaces provide a great deal of benefits for integrating new interaction modes within applications. The Perl code presented here allows you to assign specific application functions to "Three-Finger Swipe," as well as open- and close-pinch gestures.

Multitouch interfaces provide a great deal of benefits for integrating new interaction modes within applications. Newer hardware and drivers on Mac OS X and Microsoft® Windows® allow for a variety of gestures beyond point and click that create more efficient application navigation.

Earlier this month Canonical introduced its own multi-touch framework for Ubuntu that is set to premiere with Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" and it's called UTouch and is joined by their own gesture/touch language. The X.Org Gesture Extension is already being re-evaluated and may in fact not be needed.

Recently the web was buzzing about how multitouch technology was implemented unofficially on the G1 Android. While admittedly it’s still not as smooth as I like it to be, its just a proof of concept and will probably be optimized over time...

Whether you believe the iPad hype or not, it's clear that touchscreen devices represent an important emerging hardware niche. Canonical responded to that reality recently with the release of uTouch 1.0, a software stack designed to ensure solid multi-touch and gesture support on Ubuntu.  Here are the details, along with some thoughts.

Here's a video demonstrating multitouch support all along the stack, including Linux 2.6.31, Xorg 7.5 (with XInput2) and Xinput2-enabled GTK+ (Experimental branch)
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At the Maemo Summit in Amsterdam, Nokia unveiled the roadmap for the next generation of its Linux-based Maemo platform. The company plans to introduce support for multitouch and a number of other compelling features.