Enlightenment: switch users like KDE?

trashbird1240 · 04-27-2007, 09:55 AM

Okay, first the question, then the story behind the question, in case you're pressed for time:

Is there a way to switch users in Enlightenment DR17, like the "Lock session and start new" option in KDE?

Story behind the question:

I usually use DR17 on Slackware at work. I'm going to transition our family's home computer from PCLinuxOS to Slackware and one of the things that we do all the time is switch users. My wife will be using the computer, I'll come along, switch users and then we can switch back: it's "wicked convenient" as they might say here in New England. Since I would prefer to be using DR17, there has to be a way for us to switch back in order for that to be feasible.

Just because Entrance gave me some trouble, I've decided to try out KDE for a while on my computer at work: I've tried out every other window manager for at least a day...time to go download DR16...

Talk to you soon,
Joel

Alien Bob · 04-27-2007, 10:06 AM

You have to be aware that every new concurrent X session gets a new virtual terminal. So when you "switch user" what happens is that the new session appears at "vt8" while the original session remains at "vt7" - and the next person to do a "switch user" gets the "vt9".

Without a menu entry to switch back and forth like KDE has, all you need to do is just press <CTRL><ALT>F7 to get back to virtual terminal 7. The same goes for all the other X sessions - try <CTRL><ALT>F9 or any other function key (numbers counting upward from 7) to find other running X sessions.

Eric

trashbird1240 · 04-27-2007, 12:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alien Bob

Without a menu entry to switch back and forth like KDE has, all you need to do is just press <CTRL><ALT>F7 to get back to virtual terminal 7.

Eric

Thanks for your reply.

The question is how do I start that new session? If I'm in a session in E17, and I press CTL-ALT-F8, I just get a blank screen (of course), because there's no X session running on VT8. I thought I could solve this by adding another "x" row to the end of inittab, but I was mistaken -- that's not how it works.

Thanks,
Joel

bioe007 · 04-27-2007, 01:16 PM

poking my head in here.. Im curious

I just tried from XFCE4.4:

ctrl-alt-F2
login
chvt8 # gives me a black screen
killall -SIGHUP xinit
startxfce4 vt8

I also triedd
startxfce4 vt7 -sharevts

trouble is that Xserver is already running, so the real question is how to add an Xserver client (for user#2) on the local machine, while allowing user#1's WM to retain the user#1's workspace...

so I tried:

startx&
then ctrl+alt+F1, and startx& again.. no good

sorry not an answer.. but I think the solution lies in some sequence of ctrl+alts, vi xinit and chvt..

trashbird1240 · 04-27-2007, 01:49 PM

Thanks for your reply.

I know this is possible by poking around with CLI (which I prefer), I think I'm looking for a "quick-and-dirty" as in "Is it there already?"

Thanks,
Joel

erklaerbaer · 04-27-2007, 03:02 PM

Code:

 2498 ?        Ss     0:00 /usr/bin/kdm -nodaemon
 2510 tty7     SLs+   2:57  \_ /usr/bin/X -br -nolisten tcp :0 vt7 -auth /var/run/xauth/A
 2513 ?        S      0:00  \_ -:0
 5430 tty8     SLs+   0:01  \_ /usr/bin/X -br -nolisten tcp :1 vt8 -auth /var/run/xauth/A
 5431 ?        S      0:00  \_ -:1
 5435 ?        S      0:00      \_ /usr/bin/kdm_greet

this is the ps output, when i start a new seesion from kde's menu....

chefkoch · 04-27-2007, 03:10 PM

startx :1 is usually enough.

gnashley · 04-29-2007, 09:48 AM

I usually do CTL-ALT-F6 and then login and use 'startx -- :1', but this is still not exactly what you want. The question is what, if any, display manager are you using?

bioe007 · 04-29-2007, 02:20 PM

Quote:

I know this is possible by poking around with CLI (which I prefer), I think I'm looking for a "quick-and-dirty" as in "Is it there already?"

so I guess with the answers above if enlightenment doesnt have it already then there is likely no quick&dirty way to do it. But it seems like you should be able to do it with some sort of script. I don't use enlightenment, but have you looked for a plugin or applet that has the capability?

another thought would be to look at the KDE source for managing sessions, if its all dependent on KDM? kde's login manager then maybe you could just use the KDM for runlevel 4 startup and make something from elightenment call it to switch users.

another nearly worthless 2c

Nailbar · 04-30-2007, 01:05 AM

If You are running runlevel 4, have You tried "kdmctl reserve" ?

I'm not entirely sure if that's the command but that's what I'm using to start a new session from Blackbox. Should pop you to a KDM login screen.

trashbird1240 · 04-30-2007, 09:08 AM

Hello Forum,

Thanks for the great suggestions: you're all very helpful.

I will try these.

Another thing I'm also trying is KDE itself

I'm learning to enjoy it. I have it installed but have never really tried it out until now. I think I will be satisfied using KDE at home for at least a while.

To answer your questions:
1. I'm using KDM because I was using Entrance and it gave me some trouble.
2. There very well might be an applet to do this in enlightenment; it's hard to tell where they are taking it because making it "just like KDE" or "GNOME-esque" is not a goal of theirs -- I think that's cool, however it would be nice to have this feature...
3. Which I would definitely program myself; they'd probably do a better job, so I think I will just make the suggestion.

Thanks everybody,
Joel

Wynd · 04-30-2007, 02:36 PM

Does anyone know of a way to do this with XDM? I've been looking and can't find anything

trashbird1240 · 05-01-2007, 09:06 AM

I did

Code:

startx -- :1

and that worked just fine. I could probably code that up.

Joel

BCarey · 05-01-2007, 10:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by trashbird1240

My wife will be using the computer, I'll come along, switch users and then we can switch back: it's "wicked convenient" as they might say here in New England.

Assuming that there are no privacy issues, why is switching users preferable to each user having their own virtual desktop(s)? Then you avoid the overhead of multiple X sessions.

Brian

trashbird1240 · 05-02-2007, 08:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BCarey

Assuming that there are no privacy issues, why is switching users preferable to each user having their own virtual desktop(s)? Then you avoid the overhead of multiple X sessions.

Brian

Good Question Brian,

For a few reasons, it's better to have things divided up, all of them adding up to a big part of the beauty of a multi-tasking, multi-user system:

I have different aesthetics about the desktop and how it affects the functionality of the computer. I mainly run terminal emulators and my favorite editor, XEmacs, in transparent windows or without scrollbars and frame borders.
We both use KDE, but my KDE looks more like Afterstep and hers looks more like that other desktop we used to use. Her background is a rotating slideshow of pictures of our son, whereas mine is a neutral color background. I have gkrellm running -- it would just distract her.
Applications behave differently under different users, and this is something we want. For example, our family's accounting spreadsheet has a particular color-code that my wife uses to keep track of things; I find it hard to look at. Another example is Firefox: my bookmarks and history stay on my side, and her bookmarks and history stay on her side.
I tend to run lots of things on different desktops already.

Furthermore, I think she would find Enlightenment or even Fluxbox to be prohibitively confusing and she would rather spend her time getting stuff done than learning how to use the computer; I prefer a healthy mix of the two

At the times when I want to use Fluxbox, Enlightenment, Afterstep or whatever I feel like that day, she might find it annoying.

Joel