Quoting Arnt Gulbrandsen (arnt@???):
> Simon Walter writes:
>
>> Oh the insolence. Amazing. "You're holding it wrong" comes to
>> mind. There is this guy named Lennart who might agree with you.
>
> Quite likely he might, he's not stupid after all. And I agree too:
> Multiseat is unimportant, barely significant. The price of computers
> has dropped enough that the ones with UIs are now personal devices.

Might be obvious, but just mentioning: 'Multiseat' (GNOME/system
implementation of which proximately caused the systemd-logind
omnishambles of several years ago) needs to be distinguished from
multiuser.

Unix has been inherently, by design, _multiuser_ since its beginning, and
I for one would be quite sad if my Linux servers were suddenly 'personal
devices': E.g., a Web / SMTPd / ftpd / sshd / rsyncd / NTPd server like
the one in my garage suddenly failing to serve remote users would be a
misfortune.

I have to confess that I personally didn't understand how multiseat
differs from multiuser on Linux until quite recently. Pro bono publico:
It concerns simultaneous _local_ users. The Linux kernel[1] can,
unaided, make _only one_ (local) virtual terminal active at a time. Sure,
you can (e.g.) have one X11 server attached to /dev/tty7 and another to
/dev/tty8, but it turns out that any time one's active, the other can't
be -- even if two physical sets of console hardware are attached.
So, multiseat is, in short, a system software elaboration to fix that.

This missing kernel functionality isn't important to either you, Simon
Walter, or me, but it's a genuine limitation nonetheless, and there's
nothing wrong _per se_ with offering ways around that limitation. Note
that systemd-consoled is not the only candidate: kmscon preceded it,
albeit development is currently stalled.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kmscon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiseat_configuration#GNU.2FLinux also
mentions several other current implementations.

So, multiseat is _not_ a systemd invention, nor a systemd monopoly.

Latter page mentions 'Multiseat setups are great for schools, libraries,
and family computers.' Arguably true, _maybe_. Depends on the economics
of additional consoles versus extra complete computers, I guess. I
enjoyed using minicomputers during high school: A modern revival of that
computing model using Linux might make money sense or might not, depending.
Otherwise, I wouldn't say today that it'll necessarily be 'unimportant' in
years to come.


[1] Some other *ixes such as SunOS and Irix allegedly (per Wikipedia)
had multiseat capability since early days, though I have no further
details.