Mutliple users using same desktop?

[Tiago Vignatti]

Daniel Stone wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 12, 2006 at 10:02:39AM +0000, Colin Guthrie wrote:
>> Alex Deucher wrote:
>>> On 12/11/06, Deron Johnson <Deron.Johnson at sun.com> wrote:
>>>> I seem to recall hearing that someone in Xorg is working on upgrading
>>>> the server to handle multiple sets of input devices, so multiple users
>>>> can use the same desktop simultaneously.  But I forgot who is working
>>>> on this? Can anyone refresh my memory? Thanks.
>>> Multi-Pointer X Server
>>> http://wearables.unisa.edu.au/mpx
>> This is multi *pointer* X, not multi *user* X. It *will* allow multiple
>> input devices (pointers at least) but it's meant of one user - two mice
>> == two pointers on screen - kinda funky!
>>
>> You probably want to look at "multi seat X" or similar configurations
>> which would allow this setup.
>>
>> I don't really know much about it but here is a starting point ;)
>> http://www.google.com/search?q=%22multi%20seat%20X%22
>>
>> With evdev, it should be quite easy to create mutliple X
>> instances/screens with multiple usb keyboards/mice and use multi head
>> (or multiple) graphics cards to create a multi seat machine. I've
>> certainly read several reports about this kind of setup.
> 
> It depends on what the question actually was, since it was unclear.
> 
> My input-hotplug fixes multiple input devices for one session properly.
> Peter's MPX allows you to have multiple pointers in one session, so an
> MPX-aware window manager lets you do cool things (like stretch windows).
> Zepheniah's evdev driver allows you to have multiple X sessions on the
> one machine, but in reality, the effort required to make this happen --
> getting the right hardware combination is a nightmare -- probably
> outweighs the benefits.
> 

There is a workaround to get out off the "combination nightmare" using 
the nested [1] Xephyr server. AFAIK there are some guys from Groovix [2] 
commercializing it.

Xglx upstream code (xgl-0-0-1) also works on the same manner but it 
isn't documented though.


> Cheers,
> Daniel
> 

Cheers,

[1] http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Multiterminal_with_Xephyr
[2] http://groovix.com/

-- 
Tiago Vignatti
C3SL - Centro de Computação Científica e Software Livre
www.c3sl.ufpr.br