[kde-linux] Simultaneous sessions

[Steve O'Neill]

On Sat, 3 Sep 2005, Paul Smith wrote:

> Dear All
>
> Is there some way of having two sessions (corresponding to different
> users) running simultaneously on the same computer?
>
> Thanks in advance,

One way to do it is described in O'Reilly's "Linux Desktop Hacks", page 54. I
found I had to make a small mod to the instructions there. My system is
Mandriva LE2005, so I had to mod the Xservers file in /etc/X11/xdm, rather than
the one in /etc/kde/kdm, as described in the book. Your system may need
changes to the Xservers file somewhere else. At any rate, the idea is simply
this: inside the Xservers file is a bunch of lines that look like

:0 local /usr/X11R6/bin/X -deferglyphs 16
:1 local reserve /usr/X11R6/bin/X :1 vt8 -deferglyphs 16
:2 local reserve /usr/X11R6/bin/X :2 vt9 -deferglyphs 16 ...

up to :5. Your default session is on display :0, and should be on tty7. To
enable another session, simply change the second line to

:1 local /usr/X11R6/bin/X :1 vt8 -deferglyphs 16

In other words, get rid of the word "reserved". Now, simply typing Ctl-Alt-F8
will take you to that session for login. Ctl-Alt-F7 gets you back to your
original session. Of course, you can change the other lines to create more
sessions, if necessary. And, if you need more than 6 sessions total, you
should be able to create more ttys, and add extra lines to Xservers(I haven't
done this, so don't hold me to it.)

HTH

SJO