[SOLVED] How to configure toggling between local and remote X sessions?

damgar · 12-25-2009, 09:42 PM

I've googled a bit on this, but so far have not found anything related to what I'm trying to accomplish....

I have 2 linux machines on my network. The first is Ubuntu 9.04 and the second is running Slackware 64_current. I have the Slack machine configured to listen for XDMCP requests and I frequently use Ubuntu's login screen (gdm) to run a remote X session.

What I would like to do is have the ability to toggle between both a local Ubuntu session and a remote Slack session similar to toggling between virtual terminals (ctrl+alt+f4, and back with ctrl+alt+f7 for instance). I've tried this by

Code:

root@DELL:/home/USERt# X -query HOSTNAME

which responds with

Code:

Fatal server error:
Server is already active for display 0
	If this server is no longer running, remove /tmp/.X0-lock
	and start again.

Is there something that I can edit, or a command I can use to allow two simultaneous X sessions, with one being local and the other being remote?

paulsm4 · 12-26-2009, 02:48 PM

Sure you can.

SUGGESTION:
Google for "LTSP howto" (Linux Terminal Server Project)
... or ...
"xvncserver howto" (so that VNC clients will get a GDM or KDM desktop login)

I'm not sure which (if either) of these suggestions match your particular scenario ...

... but I *am* pretty certain that you'll get most (all?) the pieces you need in order to put together your own "best case" solution.

Good luck .. PSM

damgar · 12-26-2009, 07:52 PM

Thanks for the reply. The suggested links were good reading, and got me thinking about my googling. I never found EXACTLY what I was looking for,but that got me here: http://lists.x.org/archives/xorg-dev...st/001608.html which led me to the following command:

Code:

X :1 -query REMOTEHOST

which takes me directly to the kdmchooser for my slackbox! So it's as easy as accessing tty1 or tty7 to switch between my UBUNTU with gnome or my SLACKWARE with KDE! (I'll apologize for the exclamations but IT'S JUST SO COOL!)

The only drawback to this method is that when I toggle back to the local machine I lose my connection to the remote machine, so I'll have to work on that.

damgar · 12-26-2009, 08:06 PM

I was being pessimistic in thinking I was losing my session. What I didn't realize (although I read it in the links you posted, THANKS AGAIN) was that x uses tty7 and above so even though I execute my commands in say tty1 once I start the new X session I will be toggling to a different tty above 7 (my machine seems to like tty9).

This puts a whole new spin on the "which distro and kde vs. gnome" discussions......why choose when you can have them all!

Or at least as many as you have virtual terminals.