This isn't so much a problem but more of a 'how would I' or 'what would I need'. Here's the situation. I have a computer in my room but I want to allow my brother (In the next room) to have a keyboard monitor and mouse so that we can both use the computer at the same time.
What would be the easiest and preferably cheapest way of doing this. I've been looking at video cards that support dual-head or something and was wondering if there was another way or if I could get a recommendation on a video card if not.
Thanks,
Kyle

What about setting up a dumb terminal for use with:
http://www.tldp.org

I'm sorry I've been reading several howto especially the xdm howto but I still don't understand 'physically' how I would acomplish this.

I don't understand those howto's they use words jargon I've never heard before
For example would it be possible to ....

........................................................................................Wall
computer --- from dual port video card ---- monitor | --- from second vidcard port ------- monitor
...................|- usb mouse..................................................| --- ps/2 mouse
...................|- usb keyboard..............................................| --- some type of keyboard

Or is there an easier way?

The problem I can see with you using this method is that you will be limited to a few meters by the length of cable you can use.

If you use a dumb terminal (ie a cheap old pc - no need for a hard drive) you could actually boot it over the network and use the faster resources of your pc to do any browsing/word processing etc.

true, just get a cheap pc (it could even be a ... gasp, 486 ), with a small hd 500mb to 1 gb, but a decent video card. with a 10baseT, 10/100baseT, or 100baseT ethernet card , install a stripped down distribution of say, redhat that has the following, tcp/ip connectivity, openSSH, and and X server, then set it up with X forwarding (i think that works by default with redhat) and voila, you have 2 monitors, keyboards and mice attached to your computer (although not physically of course)

If you use LTSP you don't even need a hard drive or a distro installation.

Okay, I think I get it now,
Thanks!
Kyle

well the way you orignially want to do it would not quite be possible. while it would be possible to have two monitors, mice, monitors, gfx cards and a seperate setup for each system, there is no way to run them at the same time AFAIK. you could run both server at one time, but only one would be able to have a focus at a given time. you know you can press ctrl+alt+2 to get another terminal outside of X, wel that's what would happen with the other system. but you also know that once you do your ctrl+alt+2 you can no longer access the X server screen....

well i say all that and google a bit and find someone at least advocating the possibility:
http://maillists.uci.edu/mailman/pub...er/000132.html i had a brief go, but i'm using a single dual output card so it wasn't having any of it. i do still doubt it's possible.

Oh okay. Looks like it's time to go talk to the boys over at xfree86.