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Multitouch gesture support is everywhere these days. Windows 7 has it baked in (well, not Windows 7 Starter, but all the other versions). So does Apple OS X and iOS, Google Android, Palm WebOS, and a number of other mobile operating systems. So it’s not all that surprising that Ubuntu Linux founder Mark Shuttleworth is announcing that the next version of Ubuntu will support multitouch gestures.

The new touch framework is called UTouch, and it should be ready to go when Canonical launches Ubuntu 10.10 in October.

Of course, you’ll need a device with supported hardware. Right now that means a computer with support for 4-finger touch if you want to use all the features.

What’s new about the way Canonical is approaching multitouch is that the UTouch framework will let you string multiple gestures together to initiate more complex actions. You can read more about the new gestures and how they work in a public document about the project.