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Multiple Desktop Users on a Single Machine?

Posted by Cliff on from the multiple-heads-why-not-multiple-consoles dept.

_Sharp'r_ asks: "I'm trying to design the least expensive way to make OpenOffice, email, and a web browser available to students in a new charter elementary school. In my past experience working with charitable computer donations, I can usually get three to four working computers out of five donated 'broken' computer systems, usually with plenty of monitors, keyboards and mice left over. I'd like to use one computer for multiple students by attaching multiple monitors, USB keyboards and mice. What drivers/OS versions support multiple local input devices and monitors that can be attached to a specific login session? Will this require virtualization? Is there a config I haven't found that you can use to assign these devices to specific ttys? Have you done this before?"

7 of 106 comments (clear)

  1. XFree-Local-multi-user-HOWTO by Cocoronixx · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://tldp.org/HOWTO/XFree-Local-multi-user-HOWTO /index.html

    The HOWTO is a bit dated, but it is probably relevant enough to get you on the right track.

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  2. A few links... by stevo3232 · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://linuxgazette.net/124/smith.html
    http://www.google.com/search?q=multiseat+x
    http://cs.senecac.on.ca/~ctyler/ruby/
    http://blog.chris.tylers.info/index.php?/archives/ 14-Multiseat-X-Under-X11R6.97.0.html
    http://www.linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/200512070 0126OSDTHL

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  3. One computer, many users by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Check this out: http://www.linuxtoys.org/multiseat/multiseat.html

  4. Labor of love by mdsolar · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This level of salvage is a labor of love. There is quite a lot of open box work happening anyway. I agree with yours and other posts that X11 is the way to go. There are a lot of schools that get junk as donations and this kind of creativity is something to be admired.
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  5. Edubuntu... by EvilGrin666 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Edubuntu will do this out of the box for you. It's designed specifically for this sort of situation.

  6. Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP) by ptelligence · · Score: 4, Informative

    Get one server quality computer and load it up with Ram. The rest of the machines will be thin clients and can be just about anything down to a Pentium I. You can even run the machines diskless. You'll want a good 10/100 switch and at least a 100Mb NIC in the server. There will be a lot of information traveling across your network. I've done setups like this for kids in similar situations with donated hardware. One cool thing about this is that the students have the same experiences no matter what machine they sit down and log into. They don't have to be at one particular machine because that is where they saved their work. Definitely check it out. There is also a K-12 version for kids. Good luck. http://www.ltsp.org/ http://www.k12ltsp.org/

  7. I don't think so... by swillden · · Score: 4, Informative

    Edubuntu will do this out of the box for you. It's designed specifically for this sort of situation.

    Are you sure about that? AFAIK, what Edubuntu provides is LTSP, which allows you to run one machine with a bunch of thin clients attached to it, but each of the thin clients requires another PC. That's not the same as attaching multiple monitors and keyboards directly to one computer.

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