Linux - GeneralThis Linux forum is for general Linux questions and discussion.
If it is Linux Related and doesn't seem to fit in any other forum then this is the place.
Notices
Welcome to LinuxQuestions.org, a friendly and active Linux Community.
You are currently viewing LQ as a guest. By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics, receive our newsletter, use the advanced search, subscribe to threads and access many other special features. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today!
Note that registered members see fewer ads, and ContentLink is completely disabled once you log in.
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us. If you need to reset your password, click here.
Having a problem logging in? Please visit this page to clear all LQ-related cookies.
Get a virtual cloud desktop with the Linux distro that you want in less than five minutes with Shells! With over 10 pre-installed distros to choose from, the worry-free installation life is here! Whether you are a digital nomad or just looking for flexibility, Shells can put your Linux machine on the device that you want to use.
Exclusive for LQ members, get up to 45% off per month. Click here for more info.
I intend to (let my boss to) buy a new pc at work. As I share the desk with another linux guy, I think we could benefit from a single a bit fatter pc instead of two separate ones. The point is that we would both work at this concurrently.
Suggestions? I am considering the following options:
* use LAN for the other guy to log-in, using an older pc as the thin client. Perhaps a bit slow or using a lot of bandwidth?
* Use a direct ethernet cable from pc to the client. Need two network cards but should be fast and not use LAN ressources.
* Use dual-head graphics card and two keyboards. Anyone has any experience with this?
What about the other ressources? Is it possible to config the usb/cd-rom to be used by both of us regardless of how we log in?
It should support at least 4G ram. Should we switch to 64bit or will 32bit do as well?
I'm really confused when it comes to that RAM part. Some things I read seem to imply that the 32 bit kernel will accept up to and including 4GB, but other ones place it beyond the pale already. Even so, 32 bit should work with considerably more than 4GB providing that PAE extensions are used. There appears to be a slight impact on performance but apparently nothing catastrophic.
You only get better memory performance, and larger
chunks for userspace programs. The kernel will
quite happily support 4GB on a 32-bit system. In
fact I've set-up 32-bit servers that quite happily
run with 8 and 16GB.
I'll admit I may be thinking about how Windows handles it. Not that interested in using that much at the moment as 2GB suits me fine, so not looked into it too much.
I'd avoid multi-seat, at least for now. Using a second PC as an XDMCP client is easy and will just plain work. As the other guy said, it's easy to set up using gdm. 100Mbit is actually quite good, but gigabit will be even better.
I don't think you'll notice much of a performance impact
switching between 100 & 1000MBit for just an X redirect ...
but then prices for Gigabit hardware have become so low
that it doesn't make much of a difference anymore :}
If you use a cross over cable to connect the new pc to the thin client, since the connection is direct, you can ease up on security for that interface.
Some distro's are biarch. On SuSE for example, the 32bit versions of some programs like firefox are installed by default to avoid the problem of not having a 64 bit plugin. You could always install both and dual boot to try both versions out.
Be sure to check out your distro's specific documentation if you want to be able to log into a remote session. Generic instructions for setting up XDCMP may not work as expected. They probably have a gui config option to allow this and make the necessary adjustments to the PAM and gdm or kdm configurations.
My impression? A nice and fast computer which mostly works. The main issue was to get it running as a dual seat -- this was probably because of a bug in X.org or gdm in gutsy (it suddenly worked after an upgrade).
We attached one mouse to ps2 (just to save one USB port), another to USB and both keyboards to USB. Sharing the ressources is not a problem, given we switch off automagic mounting of removable media. Sound works also, although we have to share a single output channel.
There is still a number of minor issues:
'swith user' (a call to gdmflexiserver) tends to crash one of the X-s (fortunately you don't need to switch user too often at a dual-seat)
mice tend to swap on reboot, so we have to switch them manually
various issues related to kde, compiz and other programs, I believe these are gutsy bugs
In conclusion, I can recommend dual-seat. It does not "plainly work", you have to fiddle a bit with config, but if you are even slightly technically minded, I would rather spend the money on extra ram and save my desk for my (far too big) paper mess.
Thanks for everyone for suggestions and comments!
Best,
Ott
-------------
I post my Xorg.conf and gdm.conf here, just in case anyone would like to follow us.
# GDM Configuration Customization file.
#
# This file is the appropriate place for specifying your customizations to the
# GDM configuration. If you run gdmsetup, it will automatically edit this
# file for you and will cause the daemon and any running GDM GUI programs to
# automatically update with the new configuration. Not all configuration
# options are supported by gdmsetup, so to modify some values it may be
# necessary to modify this file directly by hand.
#
# Older versions of GDM used the "gdm.conf" file for configuration. If your
# system has an old gdm.conf file on the system, it will be used instead of
# this file - so changes made to this file will not take effect. Consider
# migrating your configuration to this file and removing the gdm.conf file.
#
# To hand-edit this file, simply add or modify the key=value combination in
# the appropriate section in the template below. Refer to the comments in the
# /usr/share/gdm/defaults.conf file for information about each option. Also
# refer to the reference documentation.
#
# If you hand edit a GDM configuration file, you should run the following
# command to get the GDM daemon to notice the change. Any running GDM GUI
# programs will also be notified to update with the new configuration.
#
# gdmflexiserver --command="UPDATE_CONFIG <configuration key>"
#
# e.g, the "Enable" key in the "[debug]" section would be "debug/Enable".
#
# You can also run gdm-restart or gdm-safe-restart to cause GDM to restart and
# re-read the new configuration settings. You can also restart GDM by sending
# a HUP or USR1 signal to the daemon. HUP behaves like gdm-restart and causes
# any user session started by GDM to exit immediately while USR1 behaves like
# gdm-safe-restart and will wait until all users log out before restarting GDM.
#
# For full reference documentation see the gnome help browser under
# GNOME|System category. You can also find the docs in HTML form on
# http://www.gnome.org/projects/gdm/
#
# NOTE: Lines that begin with "#" are considered comments.
#
# Have fun!
[daemon]
#VTAllocation=false
[security]
[xdmcp]
[gui]
[greeter]
[chooser]
[debug]
[servers]
#0=MultiSeat
#1=Standard1
#2=Standard2
0=Standard1
1=Standard2
#FirstVT=6
[server-Standard1]
name=Seat 1
command=/usr/bin/X0 -nolisten tcp -audit 0 -layout Seat1 -sharevts -isolateDevice PCI:1:0:0
flexible=false
[server-Standard2]
name=Seat 2
command=/usr/bin/X1 -nolisten tcp -audit 0 -sharevts -isolateDevice PCI:2:0:0 -layout Seat2
flexible=false
2.8GHz Intel Celeron
768MB of RAM
AT->PS/2 keyboard
USB keyboard
Two USB optical mice
ATi Radeon 9200SE PCI: 4xx glxgears
Intel integrated gpu: 3xx glxgears
One seat needs to use the qwerty keyboard layout; the other should be colemak. I want the new USB keyboard, so we'll just match the ancient keyboard with the ancient layout; seems proper. The keys even feel hard and unforgiving like those of the typewriters qwerty was made for.
I'm going to Radio Shack to pick up the keyboard and mouse right now.
We have two CRT VGA monitors of equal specs.
I've got the hardware all in place now. The machine and all is where I want it, the peripherals have been purchased... I shall begin configuration with the help of this guide here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MultiseatX
It's weird typing with one hand on each keyboard...
Now I begin.
oh yeah, almost forgot: I'm adding this in there too: http://colemak.com/Unix
..or perhaps I shouldn't... that may just add complication right now. Besides, my user account has an icon in the tray at the top to switch it anyway...
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing
Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute
content, let us know.
