Script to rotate the screen and touch devices on modern Linux desktops. Great for convertible laptops.

rotate_desktop.sh

#!/bin/bash
#
# rotate_desktop.sh
#
# Rotates modern Linux desktop screen and input devices to match. Handy for
# convertible notebooks. Call this script from panel launchers, keyboard
# shortcuts, or touch gesture bindings (xSwipe, touchegg, etc.).
#
# Using transformation matrix bits taken from:
#   https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/InputCoordinateTransformation
#

# Configure these to match your hardware (names taken from `xinput` output).
TOUCHPAD='SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad'
TOUCHSCREEN='Atmel Atmel maXTouch Digitizer'

if [ -z "$1" ]; then
  echo "Missing orientation."
  echo "Usage: $0 [normal|inverted|left|right] [revert_seconds]"
  echo
  exit 1
fi

function do_rotate
{
  xrandr --output $1 --rotate $2

  TRANSFORM='Coordinate Transformation Matrix'

  case "$2" in
    normal)
      [ ! -z "$TOUCHPAD" ]    && xinput set-prop "$TOUCHPAD"    "$TRANSFORM" 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1
      [ ! -z "$TOUCHSCREEN" ] && xinput set-prop "$TOUCHSCREEN" "$TRANSFORM" 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1
      ;;
    inverted)
      [ ! -z "$TOUCHPAD" ]    && xinput set-prop "$TOUCHPAD"    "$TRANSFORM" -1 0 1 0 -1 1 0 0 1
      [ ! -z "$TOUCHSCREEN" ] && xinput set-prop "$TOUCHSCREEN" "$TRANSFORM" -1 0 1 0 -1 1 0 0 1
      ;;
    left)
      [ ! -z "$TOUCHPAD" ]    && xinput set-prop "$TOUCHPAD"    "$TRANSFORM" 0 -1 1 1 0 0 0 0 1
      [ ! -z "$TOUCHSCREEN" ] && xinput set-prop "$TOUCHSCREEN" "$TRANSFORM" 0 -1 1 1 0 0 0 0 1
      ;;
    right)
      [ ! -z "$TOUCHPAD" ]    && xinput set-prop "$TOUCHPAD"    "$TRANSFORM" 0 1 0 -1 0 1 0 0 1
      [ ! -z "$TOUCHSCREEN" ] && xinput set-prop "$TOUCHSCREEN" "$TRANSFORM" 0 1 0 -1 0 1 0 0 1
      ;;
  esac
}

XDISPLAY=`xrandr --current | grep primary | sed -e 's/ .*//g'`
XROT=`xrandr --current --verbose | grep primary | egrep -o ' (normal|left|inverted|right) '`

do_rotate $XDISPLAY $1

if [ ! -z "$2" ]; then
  sleep $2
  do_rotate $XDISPLAY $XROT
  exit 0
fi

@V-VR: You can also head to the rotate script at linux-surface for a semi-automatic rotation script: If you follow the Installation there you get an icon in your panel. Whenever you rotated the Surface, you click on that icon and the screen adjusts automatically to the new rotation.

@V-VR I have created some .desktop files here to manually select your rotation. I had to change one variable in my system.

TOUCHSCREEN='Atmel Atmel maXTouch Digitizer'
vs
TOUCHSCREEN='Atmel Atmel maXTouch Digitizer Touchscreen'