RemotePad on Ubuntu

I love using a mouse but sometimes I’d love some finger gestures. I’ve heard about the new Wacom Bamboo Touch, but apparently everyone hates it. I’ve seen the Magic Track pad but on Windows it’s crippled anyway. Oh, and it’s $70.

In my search for the solution, I came across RemotePad. It’s an iOS app that works on all platforms. That is, it works on Windows, OSX and Linux. Since I’m not running at home right now but instead on the road, I’m using my ubuntu laptop. Working on Windows would’ve been great alone, but all three? That’s the jackpot.

RemotePad is an open source application that controls the mouse cursor of your desktop PC. This way, you can use your iPhone or iPod touch as a wireless touchpad!

Setup is relatively easy on Ubuntu.

1. Download companion application source code for Linux. It needs to be compiled.
2. Open the terminal and extract the downloaded RemotePadServer-1.10-X11-Source.tgz with tar xvfz RemotePadServer-1.10-X11-Source.tgz.
3. Since some compiling is necessary, you’ll need the packages build-essential and libXtst-dev. If you don’t already have them, run sudo apt-get install build-essential libXtst-dev.
4. Navigate into the extracted folder and then into the X11 folder.
   cd RemotePad/X11.
5. Run these scary commands: sudo ./configure && make && make install.
   This will set some configuration settings, make will prep the installer and finally, install the best thing ever.
6. The final step is to run remotepad.
7. Bonus Step:
   Run cd ~/.config/autostart/. Then run a ls. A list of files that mirror the start up programs of the current user will come up. This list would have dropbox in it if it were installed.
   Make a new file with vim remotepad.desktop. Add this to the file.
   

   [Desktop Entry]
   Type=Application
   Exec=remotepad
   Hidden=false
   NoDisplay=false
   X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=true
   Name[en_US]=RemotePad
   Name=RemotePad
   Comment[en_US]=Starts the RemotePad terminal.
   Comment=Starts the RemotePad terminal.
   

   
   This will add the remotepad command to autostart whenever the current user logs in.

RemotePad is really quite fantastic. Enjoy RemotePad!