I'm interested in your experience, too. I know that my Nokia linux-based tablet does have handwriting recognition (in the sense that you can handwrite a web address and have it converted to text to appear in the address bar, for example), so there's precedent. But, I've never seen a larger device running linux to know how desktop/laptops work. Xournal and Jarnal should both provide the Journal function, including editing pdfs, so that won't be a problem.