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
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