multiseat, -sharevts, and suspend/hibernate

Matt Price matt.price at utoronto.ca
Mon Apr 6 09:44:34 PDT 2009


hi,

I'm very close to getting a new multiseat system working, with 2 nvidia
cards, using the closed-source drivers.  It runs a nearly-unmodified
ubuntu jaunty, with xorg 7.4~5ubuntu18 packages.  I've followed several
howtos, most closely
http://www.linuxtoys.org/multiubuntu/multiubuntu.html, with the result
that I have a perfectly functioning xorg.conf, gdm, and sound.  GDM runs
2 servers; one attaches to Layout0, which uses only Screen0 (my lcd
monitor), while the other attaches to Layout1, which uses only Screen 1
(my TV-out).  login works fine and all that.  The only thing that's
missing now is the capacity to suspend to ram or disk while both gdm
servers are up and running.  

first, it seems that gdm or X inhibits suspend/hibernate when there are
two servers running, doubtless for good reason.  Nonetheless I can
trigger a manual suspend with pm-suspend or pm-hibernate.  Suspend
seemsto go fine, but on resume both monitors are blanked and I can't
bring them back up even with /etc/init.d/gdm restart.  This reminds me
of the bad old days, especially since I'm usingthe nvidia drivers (whcih
I seem to have to do, if I want multiseat to work.  

The issue seems to be with the "-sharevts" switch that (from what I can
tell) needs to be passed to the x server in order to ensure that both X
sessions are visible at the same time.  Without that switch, one gdm
server seems to run on VT7, and the other on VT9; if you switch from one
vt to the other, you can watch the two screens flicker on and off, but
you can never see both at the same time.  

So i'm wondering: does anyone out there have a multiseat system that
actually can suspend and hibernate successfully?  And if so, do you use
the -sharevts switch when starting X, or do you have some other trick
for getting the x sessions to display simultaneously?  

Look forward to hearing your advice!  thanks as always,
matt

-- 
Matt Price
matt.price at utoronto.ca



More information about the xorg mailing list