It's Time for Multiseat

Chris Tyler's Blog

It's Time for Multiseat Mon, May 5. 2008


A multiseat system is a computer set up for multiple simultaneous GUI users, using multiple graphics cards, keyboards, and mice. They're perfect for Internet cafes, library catalogs, kiosk systems, home offices, and even gaming. I've been running a 3- or 4-user multiseat system at my house for almost five years.

PulseAudio, the new GDM, recent X.org releases, ConsoleKit -- Fedora is now a better base for Multiseat than ever before, but it still requires an enormous amount of configuration to get a multiseat system running well.

If you use multiseat systems, or are interested in using them, let's get together during the FUDCon F10 hackathon and plan out a roadmap for making Fedora the best multiseat platform ever.

(Basic -- and old -- multiseat configuration information is on my blog).

Posted by Chris Tyler in CDOT, Fedora, opensource@seneca, X Window System (X11) Comments: (6) Trackbacks: (0)

Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments
Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

#1 - Basil Mohamed Gohar said:
2008-05-06 10:25 - (Reply)

Chris,

Where can someone find out more about setting-up a multiseat configuration? This is more than just using XDMCP with multiple physical computers, right?

Thanks for sharing!

#2 - Jon Pritchard said:
2008-05-06 12:41 - (Reply)

I'm also interested in multi-seat. I plan on setting up internet cafes in the UK using Linux when I'm older and I'm looking in to different potential configurations. Like Basil, I'd also be interested in extra information on multi-seat. It's the first time I've heard the term.

#3 - Chris Tyler 2008-05-06 13:56 - (Reply)

I have a really old Mini-Howto on this on my blog -- and it still gets thousands of hits a month. I really need to update it with information on other approaches (laptop multiseat and so forth, as well as sound config). You'll see mention of multiseat configuration in the documentation for (the new) GDM, PulseAudio, and so forth.

#4 - Chris Tyler 2008-05-06 13:57 - (Reply)

(Link added to the end of the article).

#5 - Tom Jacobs said:
2008-06-13 12:35 - (Reply)

I myself also made a multiseat for school project ( with use of Gentoo & GDM (Desktop environment KDE)). Chris tyler's article helped me a lot though the Xephyr script still had to be changed way more to let it work with 3 screens! You can check out the site by clicking on my name ;-)

#6 - Salix 2008-08-24 07:10 - (Reply)

Another quite detailed set of instructions can be found at http://netpatia.blogspot.com/2008/02/multiseat-computer-with-ubuntu-804.html

But it is worth to look at (and promote) following initiative: http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/3442/


Add Comment

Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (*word*), underscore are made via _word_.
Standard emoticons like :-) and ;-) are converted to images.

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.
CAPTCHA