Multiple X Sessions on one Box

[Tom 'Needs A Hat' Mitchell]

On Sat, May 15, 2004 at 04:06:27PM -0700, Justin Churchey wrote:

> Hey everybody,
> 
> When I used SuSE 8.2 last summer, a neat feature was
> the ability to hit Ctrl+Alt+Backspace to bring up
> another login screen so that another user could log
> into the box w/out terminating another users session. 
> Then, to bring up the various different sessions you
> could hit Ctrl+Alt+F<session #> to switch b/t the
> different logged in users.

As setup Ctrl+Alt+Backspace kills the X server.
But CTL+ALT+Fn may be what you are thinking about.

Inspect /etc/X11/gdm/gdm.conf  at about line 344 for something like this.
    [servers]
    # These are the standard servers.  You can add as many you want here
    # and they will always be started.  Each line must start with a unique
    # number and that will be the display number of that server.  Usually just
    # the 0 server is used.
    0=Standard
    #1=Standard

If you uncomment #1=Standard and restart gdm (the X server) you will
have two X-servers.  After the edits it looks like this.
  [servers]
  # These are the standard servers.  You can add as many you want here
  # and they will always be started.  Each line must start with a unique
  # number and that will be the display number of that server.  Usually just
  # the 0 server is used.
  0=Standard
  1=Standard
  #2=Standard

Note that more than two can be started but do not get carried away.

Linux starts logins on a list of virtual terminals.  Each can be
accessed CTL+ALT+Fn where n is a number 1 through about 8.  By default
the X server is started at vt7, and if you make the above change an X
server will be started at vt7 and vt8.  CTL+ALT+F7 will get the first,
and CTL+ALT+F8 will get the second.  See the lines in /etc/inittab
    1:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty1
    ...
    6:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty6
which I suspect set the stage that puts the first X server on vt7.

Some things are well not shared ... sound is one.

I do not know how all the display drivers in the universe work with
multiple X servers.  I would not leave a stress test running on one
and attempt to do remote virtualized brain surgery on a real person in
the other.



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