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Ask HN: Why is multi-seat out of the box is taking forever to arrive in Linux?

1 points by taatparya ↗ HN
Multi-seat software for Windows like Aster for Windows 10 etc. do a good job of catering multiple users from a single machine using multiple displays, display cards / heads and USBs. Am I wrong in thinking that Linux should provide out of the box multi-seat with minimal configuration so as to minimise initial investment on hardware, recurring energy cost, maintenance cost and the environmental fingerprint making it attractive for IT managers and school administration. This will also provide the much needed push to Linux on Desktop, especially in developing countries. How can we influence to make this a priority?

8 comments

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wahern
It's not taking forever. It already happened years ago and was effectively abandoned. Once upon time, back before the X11 server became so dependent on kernel facilities, it was relatively easy to setup a multi-seat box.

And don't forget--X11 is a networked protocol. It's still easy to run X apps from a server to be displayed on a local dumb client. But much like the evolution of the X server itself, the GUI and toolkit projects (Gnome, KDE, Wayland/Weston, etc) have neither the time nor inclination to invest in this use case. And so there's been a slow, two decade-long regression in this regard. And it's only going to get worse.

taatparya
Any ideas how can I influence the development. I know at least a dozen IT and school people who want this and I might be able to mobilize even more.

People who want to see Linux on the desktop may be more interested to see this happen.

viraptor
What do you think is missing at the moment? Ubuntu has a simple setup page, so you don't need extra software https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MultiseatTeam/Instructions

There's also a number of companies selling desktop terminals you can connect to anything running NX. (Or some other server)

taatparya
I think it should be a no-brainer e.g. Aster for Windows 7 and 10. It is plug and play with a simple GUI configuration step. The instructions you have mentioned are more than three years old.

Unless it is easily available, it is not going to be used. As soon as you get into desktop terminals, there is dependency on an outside vendor which then becomes a vendor lock.

viraptor
I'm not sure why being more than 3 years old is an issue - the functionality was supported for longer than that time. The setup is close to trivial - if you're aware of the multi seat configuration, you should be able to follow the simple 6 steps. I mean, you started from "I need a custom-built computer with N video cards and enough hubs for 2N USB ports", so we're not exactly talking beginners here.
taatparya
People used to Windows are just like beginners for Linux. It is difficult to empathise with a beginner but there are just too many versions, different for single card, multiple cards, X, gdm, xephyr etc., making it abstruse.
teovall
Why bother with multi-seat when you can get a decent SoC computer like a Raspberry Pi Zero W for $5? If multi-seat is an option for you, you probably aren't doing anything highly CPU or GPU intensive anyway.
taatparya
Actually, want to use multi-cores which are so prevalent today - you can run Netbeans IDE for Java / PHP / JavaScript on them with good memory which I don't thinks SoCs can handle. I need much more CPU than SoCs but will be happy with a single / two core(s). Four to six developers would then be able to use a single machine with decent RAM with dramatically reduced maintenance.