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FourHead: One PC, Four Users

Posted by timothy on from the four-times-the-fun dept.

LoganGD writes "A reseach group from UFPR university in Brazil, C3SL has managed to make one Linux box run four terminals at the same time. That means four mice, keyboards, displays and users with just one CPU. The way they managed to do that can be found at the FourHead project webpage. The fact that one computer science laboratory can suport up to 60 users whit only 15 PCs is really attractive for low-resource groups and countries."

7 of 496 comments (clear)

  1. Multi-headed Computer by pantherace · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I have looked at this... the problem is the way Linux handles the keyboard... To Linux, all keyboards are the same. If there was some way to either tell X to ignore all KBs except some, or have the kernel map them (say /dev/input/kb0 /dev/input/kb1) similar to how mice are done, this would not be a problem at all.

    Also, you don't need 4 cards, You could do it with two. NVidia's twinview allows you to run two seperate X-servers off of one card (provided of course that it has two outputs).

    1. Re:Multi-headed Computer by plaa · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Not relating directly to the above, but I think this may interest some people:

      When I got a dualhead card, I knew that I wanted two separate desktops, between which I can switch with a hotkey, not by scrolling the mouse to the other display (I wanted to use virtual desktops on both). I was astounded that I could find absolutely no way of doing this, and no references to it on the Net.

      The best I could do was make the screens separate and stop the mouse from going from the edge of one display to another, but then I found no way of moving the pointer to the other screen.

      After a few months I found a suitable function call in the X libraries and wrote a small program, switchscreen, to switch between the displays. Now I've got two totally separate desktops between which I can move with a simple alt-tab.

      You can read the details for configuring your X system like this in the README file included in the package.

      --

      I doubt, therefore I may be.
  2. Great gamer machine. No latency! by Animats · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This sounds like a multiplayer gamer configuration. Unlike most shared-CPU systems, everybody has a 3D video card, although they have to be PCI boards. With everybody on the same CPU, latency is a non-issue. Fast FPS games should synchronize perfectly. That tightly synchronized feel will make for much better head to head gameplay.

  3. Diversity is good by Darth+Cider · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Observations that "this has been done before" are really missing an important point, that it's being done in a new way. When there are hundreds of software solutions for everything, all for free, then there will cease to be a market for overpriced proprietary solutions. Not only that, but instead of thinking "where can I buy ___," the first thought to come to mind will be "where can I get this in Open Source."

  4. Re:Hate to burst your bubble... by C64 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    To expand further on the parent's point - I personally have 4 monitors hooked up to my main machine, using a combination of GeForce2's and FeForceMX's. And I have on ordered another GeForceMX to push my count up to 6 monitors.

    Heat has never been an issue. And this is a standard ATX case - no mods, no heavy cooling. Just one intake, one exhast, and the PSU.

  5. Re:Mainframe? by Lumpy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is a standard computer handling several video outputs, keyboards and mice by itself. Just the same as any one person system, but handling multiple persons instead.

    and has way more overhead and cost than using old P-I233 computers or dirt cheap x terminals on a network.

    I can support 10 users on one machine using Linux Terminal server for 1/4th the cost of their supporting 4 people on one machine.

    and I have a overall lower processor load.

    It's neat, but nothing more than that right now.

    Until the supply of free Pentium I class laptops and desktops dry up or the sources for dirt cheap xterminals dry up, it's nothing more than a expensive wy of doing things.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  6. 60 users on 15 PC's - try 60 users on an 8MB VAX by stanwirth · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Has computing gone forwards or backwards when it takes thousands of times the compute power to support fewer users, doing dumber things. We used to run whole research departments developing mathematical modelling, computational physics programmes on a single DEC VAX 11/750 with 8 MB of main memory and like 80 MB of hard disk space. It was so underutilised that astrophysics would rent out time on the darn thing to geophysics and chemistry.

    This was on 4.2 BSD, the mother of all open source operating systems. And we had access to supercomputers at Argonne, NCAR, LANL, LBL and Cornell over the ARPAnet. in the freaking early 1980's.

    AND we produced beautifully typeset scholarly papers and theses, full of equations using TeX. Try doing that with Office. Hnf.

    Personally, I used to use maple to do the algebraic manipulations, and export to either fortran (to run a numerical simulation to get the results that formed my thesis) or to TeX (in order to publish it). Sure as hell can't do that with the stupid Office (open or MS) programmes you need 15 64MB computers to support only 60 users on in this model. Even if you insist on running a pointy-clicky GUI, with X10 we used to run dozens of graphics terminals off of one VAX

    This article just proves that the net progress of computing is actually backwards because the computers certainly are getting bigger/faster/better more slowly than the intelligence and creativity of the users -- now they all need a GUI just to edit text and compile programs. To the point that it's a miracle when you can have more than one person using a computer at a time now. Sheesh!