Hello

I am new to linux... just switched over from an evil OS that starts with a 'W'... Any ways, I have asked a few people about this and they say it can be done, but i can't figure it out...

I am running Mandrake 9.1 with KDE. What I want to do is be able to switch users and still have the other user loged in....

So if my G/F (who I am making use linux) wants to use the computer... that she can switch to her user but still have my user loged in... with all my apps still up and my GAIM still running...

Some one said some thing about f7 and f8... and some thing about save session in the menu (which i can't find)...

Any one know how to do this??

Thanks

Linux has seven entries in which you can work. You can use Ctrl+Alt+F1~F7 to change between, F1~6 bring you to shell mode, and F7 is your desktop mode(like KDE), ie., you ONLY HAVE ONE DESKTOP MODE in which you work. So you are able to run your apps in six consoles, while another one can still work in KDE.

only one console can run a GUI???
Any way around that???

I think yes

Yeah there's gotta be because I did it when I had SuSE8.2 and RH9 installed before. On those distros, ALT-CTRL-F7 through F9 gave you a GUI login, so I had 3 GUIs, then the F1 through F6 still. So there's gotta be a way on Mandrake, but I can't find how. THat's what I'm looking for right now too. I miss that functionality.

Any guru's wanna help out here??

Do all that as root of course.

In mdk you have to use gdm as a display manager. You do that by modifying the
/etc/sysconfig/desktop file.

DISPLAYMANAGER=GNOME

your probably also have
DESKTOP=KDE
that doesn't need changing.

When you restart the dm, using /etc/init.d/dm restart

you should have a new login screen. Not that nice in 9.1, have not tried in 9.2.

Once logged in, in the menu

Configuration -> boot and init

you should have "New login with GDM". That's always been there for me, just that you need to use gdm as a display manager for it to do anything.

I've contacted the developer about having an switching GUI and although he didn't consider doing it, he though that would probably be quite easy.

Anybody good in C ?

Yes, there is an easy way. Hit Ctrl-Alt-F1 to get to your second login screen. Login with the user you want and type:

$ startx -- :1

For the third screen it would be ":2", etc.

You can switch between screens by usint Ctrl-Alt-F7 to get to the initial scree, F8 to the second, F9 to the third, etc.