Multiple Simultaneous Users

R

RichC

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Is there any way to run multiple simultaneous users on one mac? What I mean is: use multiple displays, each running a finder with title bar for a different user logged into a different account?

(I have a G5 Quad and plan to run VGA cables to several locations, along with USB, to support kbd/mouse and display each place. It's easy to have all of the displays duplicate the same desktop with a VGA splitter, or with mirroring. This works for me just going from office to shop to living-room. But with all that mulltiple user unix infrastructure, how about another display and keyboard logged into a different account with another desktop for my spouse? Perhaps I should ask on the X-server forum?)

Thanks, -Dick
 
I just cannot see this working with the normal OS X GUI. If you stick to pure X Windows, and have no normal mac software running you might get it to work but it will be a real pain in the butt. First you will need to install a video card for each separate display and you will need to figure out how to make each instance of X start on those separate displays. That is not impossible you can use what used to be the xfreeconfig file to indicate that.

Now the next hurdle you will need to get over is ownership of keyboards and mice. Here I think you may be sunk, I just don't think that the USB implementation gives you the control you need for this. In the old days of serial mice you could specify which serial port to listen on for each display, but in today's auto-detected world I think you will be going against too many existing practices.

I guess my answer is that yes it is possible, but you would be better off getting a second job at McDonold's where you could earn the money to buy your wife her own Quad PowerMac. At minimum wage you would invest less work and time in getting things up and running ;)

/I just could not bring myself to say it is impossible, but for practical purposes it is.
 
Thanks lurk, I more or less expected it to be the way you say (why should a personal computer maker facilitate timesharing?), but wish it were otherwise. I've been struggling with keeping my laptop and my G5 sync'd and was about to add a 3rd machine when it suddenly occured to me that everything would be simpler if I ran multiple locations from one. Well, that much is simple enough, but since the G5 will support 8 separately driven monitors... I thought, why not my spouse too? She already has a mini, so this isn't really that much of a problem.
But with all that unix multi-user stuff already there, how hard could it be if Apple wanted to do it? Or could it be a business opportunity for a non-Apple developer? Just think: for the cost of half a video card, a long VGA cable, and a USB extender ($200-350 depending on distance) plus display and keyboard (needed anyway), and voila -- you have the equivalent of another powerful computer. And hardly any extra maintenance or administration. Of course, this is basically the same idea someone had in the 60's named "Multics." :-) -Dick
 
I made my wife work on a dumb x-term in the days of old and I has an old VT220 on the deck as our networked "porch computer." WiFi sure has simplified my home wiring ;)

I really know what you mean, it is just that I don't think the economics is there. I mean you are talking about sharing a $3000 dollar machine vs. sharing a > $100,000 machine. I don't think that anyone could recoup the development costs.
 
You could, of course, use the Quad G5 with Mac OS X Server and have Mac minis booting off of it (i.e. the data's actually on the server) with MacBoot. But you'd still need Mac minis for that as well as a license for Mac OS X Server... Hm.
 
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