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Idea #20273: Simultaneous user environment in Ubuntu

bug This idea is a duplicate of Idea #3442: "Click-n-play" Multiseat support .
Written by Yur the 15 Jun 09 at 16:37. Category: Others. Related project: Nothing/Others. Status: New
Rationale
Use one big computer, with a multi CPU motherboard, a few video card's and a very lot of USB ports.

Then if you would be able to connect, for example 4, monitors, keyboards and mice to it, it would be very nice if you could work on the same computer with(in this case) 4 people at the time. You could give every one of them a private desktop, enable multiple cursor support. Or give them all a private account, and let them just do their own tasks on one single computer

If you would be able to let every one use the same user account at the same time, only with everyone a personal desktop, then it would be useful during, for example, a photoshop lesson, so that the teacher can help it's pupils by navigating to their desktop and fiddle around with his cursor(and keyboard, in some clever way), and that those pupils can look at the desktop of their teacher, so that would save a very lot of explanation.

Or else, in a public library, where there are a very lot of computers preforming small tasks, you could give them all a separate account, and preform all that lightweight tasks on one computer.

Or on schools, it would be easier with swapping files between students working on a project, and/or they can have a look at each others desktop if they want to show something to another.

And at last, in just a home network, it would be a lot of fumbling with cables, and the only things that are improving is files swapping, and the overall usability, because you can do everything from everywhere, because all app's are on the same computer. Oh, and parental control, but i don't like that. ;)

There might be a lot more possibilities, but these are the ones that came up in my mind.

I guess it's gonna be a nightmare to program this, but well, if it's your hobby... :)

I guess there is a lot of improvement possible to my way of presenting this, but i don't find it bad for the first time of posting an idea.

Greetz,

Yur

-14
votes
closed
Solution #2: Virtual Machines
Written by qinjuehang the 20 Jun 09 at 14:37.
It would be harder to implement than seperate X sessions, but would be better sandboxed, and one user has no way of affecting another no matter how good a hacker he is.
22
votes
closed
Solution #3: A multiple screen HID-functionality selector
Written by BayerBear the 17 Aug 09 at 18:35.
A program functionality that pops up when more than one screen, mouse and/or keyboard are connected or present. Gives the user a choice between the standard 'extended desktop' functionality, and making a new desktop session where the specified keyboard and/or mouse are channeled/piped. Also implement 'swap'-hot keys for swapping mouse and/or keyboard.

Hot-key example: AltGr+M(or something) makes the first mouse that clicks both rigth and left button at the same time swap to the screen were the keyboard entry was made. A keyboard 'swap'-hot key for selecting another screen (bringing the nested mouse with it or not) would be easy.

Of course, system administrator must have the ability to lock HIDs to specific screens.

Propose your solution

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Comments
kidmodify wrote on the 17 Jun 09 at 05:02
This idea sounds a lot like: http://www2.userful.com/
It would be nice to have a free version on ubuntu.

qinjuehang wrote on the 20 Jun 09 at 14:33
I don't see any reason why multi-cpu boards would not be supposted in Ubuntu. Sure, if the chipset is not supported some fancy features would notbe there, but it would work.

Yur wrote on the 21 Jun 09 at 18:38
Yeah, I'm sorry for that title, the description of "idea rationale" pointed somewhat in the direction of such a title...I'm sorry. ;)

Ok, next admin that comes along, please change my title in something like "Simultaneous user environment in Ubuntu."

Well, i had no clue wether Ubuntu supports multi CPU boards or not, so i chose that solution, because there was the biggest chance. ;)

And, I find the virtual machines a very nice solution, only point is that for some uses you need to be able to use each others desktop. ;) But, very nice solution, because then you have easy control by one user.

Greetz,

Yur

cheesehead (Brainstorm admin) wrote on the 24 Jun 09 at 03:10
Edited the title.

Thingymebob wrote on the 25 Jun 09 at 20:06
I like this idea, why have 4 systems on just browsing the web or other basic stuff when 1 is more than capable.

BayerBear wrote on the 18 Aug 09 at 13:30
I changed the tag not to include 'CPU' or anything of that sort since even a single core CPU supports multiple users. The real idéa here is being able to have separate sets of screens, mouse and keyboard on a single physical computer.

Could an administrator change the first sentence in the description(since the first sentence is pretty important) from:
>Use one big computer, with a multi CPU motherboard, a few video card's and a very lot of USB ports.

to:
>Using a single computer, with multiple screens and sets of keyboard and mouse, to support several local user sessions.


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