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Author: Vlad
Date:  
To: Isaac Dunham
CC: dng
Subject: Re: [DNG] Multi-seat on Devuan, do we actually need that useless curiosity?
Yeah, but that is why we have VNC for.
As I said, multiseat is pretty much useless.
Hell, the proprietary software can be installed on a server and run from
anywhere.
On Jul 23, 2015 6:32 AM, "Isaac Dunham" <ibid.ag@???> wrote:

> On Thu, Jul 23, 2015 at 03:49:32AM +0300, Vlad wrote:
> > I think that the pretty useless feature which helped systemd into Debian
> in the first place was discussed some time ago.
> > As you might know multi seat is supposed to make possible for multiple
> users to utilize a single desktop or laptop system in full blown GUI mode
> via special USB hubs, the main selling point of this curiosity was as a
> way to run schools in 3rd world countries.
> > However these extension hubs actually cost more than a Raspberry Pi, and
> the Pi has the extra selling point that the student can take it home and
> use it there.
> > I do not see any real need for silly things like multi seat and with
> every nanometer less and every new cell phone the price and power
> consumption per Ghz falls.
> > In my opinion 99+% of users really won't care about this curiosity,
> which is a cool concept with less and less actual relevance or practical
> purpose behind it with every passing day.
>
> Somehow it seems to me like someone trying to reinvent the dumb terminal,
> but with less distance possible.
> I could imagine one situation where it makes sense:
> $site is running commercial software for x86{,_64}, licensed on a per-
> processor basis with multiple users permitted; said commercial software
> requires a decent processor but not much GPU.
>
> Other than that, I can't picture a use.
>
> All that said, I *can* picture a way to implement it using X(fbdev?) and
> perhaps mdev (which I thought about not long ago...):
> - *disable* input device hotplug in X11
> - keyboards get renamed /dev/input/kbd$N, like how mice are named
> - for new keyboards, mice, and framebuffer/drm nodes, run a helper
> script that will spawn an X11 login if the appropriate devices exist
> for the current $N.
> You could even use hard links, bind mounts, and unshare to make
> restricted containers for different users.
> (I'm thinking of putting hard links to the device in /dev/seat$N/, but
> with normal naming conventions under that. Then each seat gets a new
> mount namespace and a private bind-mount over /dev.)
>
> In theory, that should be a pretty small amount of work.
> But I don't have any hardware suitable for testing, and don't feel that
> it really justifies getting said hardware.
>
> Thanks,
> Isaac Dunham
>