hey guys, is there a function like in XP how you can switch users instead of logging off? I know there is the save session option but it doesn't do it very well, I just want to plainly switch to root in gui mode and then revert back to my user mode and it not touch anything in the user mode while I am in root.


I kno wI can just go to another session alt-ctrl-F5 but I want to be able to access it in xwin. is this possible?


thanks
Mitch

MitchM99

Try using the command su <user name>. You can type the command in a terminal window or, if your GUI provides it, a run window.

To become root, you would enter the command:
su root
You will then be asked for the root password. You could also replace "root" with, say, "kc8tbe" to become kc8tbe (for this you would need kc8tbe's password). If you are running the command as root, you will NOT need the password of the user you are becoming. This is useful if you want to change a user's settings but do not know that user's password.

Hope this works for you!

-kc8tbe

thanks for replying but that not exactly what I am looking for, this is a multi user platform meaning me and my wifs both have accounts along with root but what I want to do is if she is on and I kick her of for like 2 secs to see if my download is finishing or whatever, I don;t have to log off her account but meerly switch users like in XP then go right back to where she was un scaved...

Thanks.
Mitch

If you absolutely must have your root user's gui (don't particularly see why you should need this), then you can ctrl-alt-f2 away from the user's X session, login as root at the text prompt, and then use something along the lines of "startx -- :1" to start another X session.

In this example, the user had an X server running on display 0, and root began their X server on display 1. In redhat at least, that would be ctrl-alt-f7 and ctrl-alt-f8. You can swap between these as you like.

The caveat, of course, is that you'll need to have enough memory kicking around to run both X servers at the same time. I do this routinely with kde on a box with 256MB of ram.

Having said all that (which I did, because it's a useful technique to know), I don't see why you would want root to have their own X server - you can run X apps from a terminal (konsole, xterm etc) on the users's X server once you've used su to become the root user in that terminal. Quite apart from that, most rootsy things are done well without X.

oh for to add I am running Slackware 8.1 using KDE3.0 for my WM. I know I can not run 2 instances of Xwin but hopefully someone will know

Having just seen your reply to the first poster, I'm confused! If you were downloading something in the background, how were you doing this without already being able to have multiple sessions?

I dont know if this would work I don't know that much about scripting but maybe write a script to do this and point to it with an icon or a start menu item

sorry guys, I guess I made a bad example, heres the situation, I am doing my normal stuff XMMS icq gaim mozilla ect. right? ok well say my wife wants on for one sec and I let her but instead of her using my workstation ex user Mitch she does just like XP does and lets you switch users to her user Shannon and does this w/o having to close any of my apps open or anything basically keeps what I was doing intact. do you know the feature I am talking about in Windows XP right?

The technique which I described above provides equivalent functionality, however it is not suitable for users which are afraid to deal with text without bubbly blue borders around it :-) You get two independent X sessions, with two independent users logged in. The whole "multi-user" thing :-)

As for doing this without the scary command line, you could try and get kdm configured to have two X servers with two login prompts, and ctrl-alt-f{7,8} between them. There's no techical reason it should be impossible, but I've no idea if kdm has the feature. My system boots to a black logon screen with the word "login:", so I'm not majorly experienced with graphical login.

I know I can not run 2 instances of Xwin
Who told you that? Incidentally, Xwin is not a common abbreviation - most people refer to the system as X.

you have help emencly and about the xwin (I got it from another forum) but anyone know how I could set this up ? or better yet refer me to a site with a how to (easier on me and you and it's they way I prefer. I am not afraid to get down and dirtty with my command line and I like the ever occuring manually editing my configs so I am down with what it takes. I just got done doing a kernel recompile (pice of cake) and now on to goodness. this is for anyone reading, converting my wife over to linux was very easy, all it takes is making lots of icons thats all pont and click and make it look like windows does.


Thanks again


Mitch

anyone?

What loggin manager do you use?
I'm guessing kdm -- gdm does it nicely but I can't find a kdm howto.

Personally I'd use "startx -- :1 from" the console

Try a google search for
kdm multiple logins

Thank you

if you use gdm instead, while in your X session of choice, run "gdmflexiserver" and it'll launch a new X login on vt8. sometimes it works... i'm talking about gnome 2.2, not sure about older ones. also, (if it works), you can run "gdmXnest" and it'll launch a new X session embedded in a window (using the Xnest server for a "nested" window), this way you can look at both at once, and actually have as many Xs running as your RAM can handle, without any Ctrl+Alt+Fkey switching... gdm has its uses, too!

or, if you're in kdm, goto a console and run gdm... it'll complain about how vt7 is busy, ask to try on vt8, and run it there with a message stating what it did by moving to the next vt. then you use even more memory still, running a second desktop manager with already 2 desktops and 2 X sessions, but it's useful when you weren't planning on having another session... i think gdm and gdmflexiserver are kinder on your mem use since gdm *must* be running first