HOWTO: On-the-fly Multiseat (one computer acting as several physical ones)

[motin]

Wow nice work with the quick update! Maybe you could have a look at userful and see if there are any other features you think would be valuable.

Thanks. I have never tried the Userful Desktop Multiplier but I believe that this technique and the DM are basically different approaches to different demands. This is only for spawning windowed X sessions with assigned mice/keyboards and not for permanent multiseat setups.

I will still of course listen to suggestions for improvement.

I noticed that in some of the code you have you say to do one step at a time, could you not automate these steps and make it a script just by using && on the end of each 'one at a time' line?

Eventually I guess I'll wrap it together in a shell script. The problem right now is that I ran into many breakages on the steps before adjusting the strategy and methods and I am almost certain that my instructions will not work for many types of hardware. Wrapping everything in a script is a bit to much when it isn't tested more.

You may also be interested in the HWCursor/SWCursor options for xorg.conf which may mean your setup could operate without XGL. Here is a (slightly old but likely still accurate) site that has a little info on the cursor issue: http://www.x.org/archive/X11R6.8.0/doc/ati5.html

Problem with these options is that I don't see how to specify them on the command line. Only Xgl seem to have the -swcursor switch, but I guess one could figure out a way to use gdmflexiserver with some X init script or maybe Xephyr etc but as long as the Xgl version Works For Me I'll leave it up to any user to contribute with a way to accomplish this.

If I get more success stories how these instructions works with different drivers and setups then I'll have no second thoughts about bunching it together

Finally you may want to look at/mention checkinstall which replaces the make install line and rather than just installing the software all over the place creates a nice deb and then installs that so that it may be easily uninstalled. I don't think it handles dependency checking or anything but it is still nice to be able to manage the software you have installed from source using the package manager. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2356

I usually write my instructions using checkinstall, but since this "make install" only copies a single binary to /usr/local/bin then I judged it as overkill for this guide. Especially since it is not yet ready for anyone not familiar with Linux in the first place.

Thanks for the feedback!

Cheers,

Fredrik

[trolldown]

Remember that there are other ways to achieve multiterminal set-ups which may be more suited for web café installations. if that's what you are looking for to achieve. This above here is mainly for being able to spontaneously share your computer with a co-worker which has no laptop at hand currently.

yeah.. my intention is for a net cafe. what are the other ways that you are talking about??

Thanks

[andersja]

I'm also very keen to see this expanded in Hardy or Hardy+1 to allow for simple sharing of one computer to several monitors/keyboards on a permanent basis (think: buying one more powerful computer for the whole family, allowing 2+ persons to work/play independently of each other, sharing one computer?

See also:
http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/206/
http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/383/
http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/3153/ (incorrectly listed as "Implemented")

[andersja]

See also: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=583037

[mayeulk]

libncurses5-dev has some required headers. The script uses dbus.
Hence my full list of packages to install becomes:

sudo apt-get install xserver-xgl libx11-dev libxtst-dev gizmod libncurses5-dev dbus-x11

I also needed to download and compile errut from the same website as xevdevserver-2.0.0

cd /errut-1.0.0/
./configure
make
sudo make install

before doing this:

cd ../xevdevserver-2.0.0/
./configure
make
sudo make install

In addition, for completeness about the .sh script:

sudo cp detect-and-assign-multiseat-mouse-and-keyboard.sh /usr/local/bin/
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/detect-and-assign-multiseat-mouse-and-keyboard.sh

Still, I have problems.

# Any unused X display number...
export SEAT2_DISPLAY=:1.0

Can you be more specific?

echo  $MAIN_DISPLAY

returns

:0.0

Is :1.0 OK?

Is the following empty value OK?

# Tip: Use an empty value here while testing as fullscreen can be hard to get out from!
export SEAT2_GEOMETRY=

Where could I find inormation on how to "correctly launch KDE atm" ? (I Googled a bit, without success).
Anyway, I'm far from it.
Doing

DISPLAY=$MAIN_DISPLAY ; sudo /usr/bin/Xgl -dpi 86 -ac -accel glx:pbuffer -accel xv:pbuffer -softcursor $SEAT2_GEOMETRY :1.0 &

Has no effect.



I assume it is correct to do all the above in a graphical command line Konsole.

Thank you for your help.

[andersja]

See also (and vote for!)

http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/3442/

[andersja]

[arfarean]

I've success spawn 2 independent Xgl process by following this thread instruction, using Ubuntu 8.04.

I wonder how to make it automated and make it without "frame" like this:

from http://research.edm.uhasselt.be/~jor...Misc.DualSeatX

[EdGato]

I haven't got a clue

Currently sound is shared between the two users, but routing sound to different outputs may be possible using a sound server such as PulseAudio or JACK. You'd probably be better off starting a new thread for that matter though.

If Skype is this only concern here, it may also be possible to configure Skype to use a separate pair of USB sound + webcamera for each user...

Also, currently Xgl seem only to perform well using ATI drivers. On my Intel 915gm (laptop) this second user gets sluggish video and firefox scroll performance. Webcamera usage may be rather CPU-consuming as well.

Remember that there are other ways to achieve multiterminal set-ups which may be more suited for web café installations. if that's what you are looking for to achieve. This above here is mainly for being able to spontaneously share your computer with a co-worker which has no laptop at hand currently.

yeah.. my intention is for a net cafe. what are the other ways that you are talking about??

Thanks

Me too! For a cafe... does audio work on individual stations? Where can I get the cheapest USB keyboards, mice, and speakers? I can't as yet afford Userful's DiscoverStation..... however, at $99, I think it's cheap enough for those with the money, though...

[arfarean]

My goal is using splitscreen as Point of Sales (PoS) terminal or Paid Parking Terminal. This approach will saving resources.