On Tue, 11 Mar 2003, Stephen Moore wrote:
>There is a howto on how to get multiple local users on one redhat box at
>http://cambuca.ldhs.cetuc.puc-rio.br/multiuser
>
>The difficult bit seems to be the keyboard, is this still the problem?
The above webpage is one that I've known about roughly since it
was first posted, which was quite a long time ago. I have never
actually tried out this person's multi-seat X solution, however
one thing is extremely clear:
This is a hack.
In other words, this person has shown one of the benefits of open
source software, as he has used the source code to scratch his
own itch. He's bent and twisted the metal to do what he wants it
to do, and solve his problem du jour.
This "solution" however is by no means a proper solution, nor is
it one that is technically clean or supportable. It is basically
a big fat ugly hack/kludge to work around current limitations
present in the Linux kernel and X.
I can assure you, that there's no way that this hack will go into
any Red Hat product, however the hack is indeed interesting as
hacks go. ;o)
>Is this a possibility for phoebe (8.1)?
No. But mainly because:
1) It is an ugly hack
2) Phoebe is a beta release, and it is already released
3) The most recent Phoebe beta is 8.0.94, not 8.1, and that hack
is not in it, so phoebe definitely at least to date, does not
have that hack in it. ;o)
This may raise the question: "Well, will this ugly hack be in
the final release of the next Red Hat Linux prouct, whatever it
happens to be named, and whatever version it happens to be?"
The answer to that question, as answered above, is "no".
This may raise another question: "Why not?"
Answer: Because it is a very ugly hack - read the whole website.
This may raise another question: "Does Red Hat have plans to
incorporate this type of functionality into a future product?"
Answer: There is no _specific_ plan to do that, but there is no
plan to avoid doing it either. Basically, this type of
functionality _might_ be present in some future Red Hat Linux
release, if and when both the mainstream official Linux kernel,
and the official mainstream XFree86 have proper "sane" support
for this type of functionality in a clean non-hack way.
The good news is - that is very likely to happen in the future,
since the 2.5.x kernel has support for multiple "seats" in the
new console code, which is the major thing required on the kernel
side of the fence for allowing this type of functionality.
XFree86 may or may not require modification as well (unknown at
this point) in order to work in a multi-seat manner.
This type of feature could allow one computer to handle 4 (or
more perhaps) users, each having their own monitor, video card,
keyboard, mouse - all plugged into a single computer they're
sharing. This would be fantastic for "browse/mail" types of
internet cafe's, as well as for kiosk walls, data entry
workstations, call centers, etc.
I believe this type of feature will be a very strong point for
Linux in the future, and will allow Linux to be used as a much
cheaper solution than others out there when the time comes.
But I also believe in waiting until the proper technology is
complete and released, which means this will occur at aome point
in time after 2.6.0 is released.
So, in the long run, this will happen, it just wont be rushed.
Hope this helps.
--
Mike A. Harris ftp://people.redhat.com/mharris
OS Systems Engineer - XFree86 maintainer - Red Hat
--
Phoebe-list mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/phoebe-list
