Two different users on the same machine

Patrick O'Callaghan pocallaghan at gmail.com
Tue Aug 5 21:14:23 UTC 2008


On Tue, 2008-08-05 at 14:56 -0500, Aaron Konstam wrote:
> On Tue, 2008-08-05 at 09:47 -0430, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
> > On Tue, 2008-08-05 at 09:08 -0500, Aaron Konstam wrote:
> > > On Mon, 2008-08-04 at 22:58 +0100, Paul Smith wrote:
> > > > On Fri, Aug 1, 2008 at 1:36 AM, Bill Davidsen <davidsen at tmr.com>
> > > > wrote:
> > > > >> I am running XFCE on F9, and I would like to know how to allow two
> > > > >> different users to login on my machine at the same time. On F8, I
> > > > >> remember a menu entry
> > > > >>
> > > > >> System --> New Login
> > > > >>
> > > > >> but I cannot find it on F9.
> > > > >>
> > > > >> Any ideas?
> > > > >>
> > > > >> Thanks in advance,
> > > > >>
> > > > > I'm not sure I understand the problem... You have a user coming in
> > > > (over
> > > > > network?) and they can't login? Or what?
> > > > >
> > > > > If you just wan't a session as another user, you use
> > > > > "xterm -e su - USER2" &
> > > On my F8 system under Gnome the option is: Applications->System Tools->
> > > New Login. But it is not clear why you want to use this and for what
> > > purpose. It looks like it allows you to login as a new user without
> > > stopping the status of the old login.
> > > 
> > > The suggestions you received will allow another user login but so will
> > > logging off and logging in again. So is the purpose you are trying to
> > > achieve?
> > 
> > He already said it in the original post: to allow two users to use the
> > machine at the same time. I interpret "at the same time" to mean "let
> > someone log in to his own X session on the same physical screen without
> > me having to log out of my session, or vice versa". It's called Fast
> > User Switching. I used to use this all the time when the rest of my
> > family didn't have computers of their own. I still use it on occasion to
> > try something on Gnome without having to log out of KDE.
> > 
> > poc
> > 
> He did say that but that is not what I normally think of as two people
> using the same computer at the same time. In your examples with your
> family only one person is using the computer at a time.

That depends on your definitions of "using" and "at the same time". In
my example several people are using the computer at the same time, but
only one is sitting in front of it.

The OP also specifically mentioned how he used to do this on F8: "On F8,
I remember a menu entry: System --> New Login" which removes any
ambiguity about what he might have meant.

> All it does is
> not require anyone to formally log off. To me it is a feature that is
> not really needed in any real sense so I was confused why he was so
> anxious to do that,

It absolutely is needed in a real sense. One common scenario was when
I'd started a long torrent download but someone else needed to check
their email. The usual BT clients only work when the user is logged in
(which I think is brain-dead in fact, but that's the way they are) so
either a) I have to stop BT and log out, or b) arrange things so the
other person can access their email and any other part of their working
environment, including the graphical parts *without* me having to log
out, or c) allow a switch to a different console where they can do what
they want in their own environment. Sometimes you need one thing and
sometimes another, but it's definitely useful to be able to do this.

Note that both MS and Apple have this feature. That's because people use
it.

> In the environment where I used to system administrate it was common to
> have 2, 3, 4 ,maybe 10 users using the computer at the same time .

16 at a time on my first Unix system, a PDP-11/45 with 256KB of main
memory (yes folks, K, not M or G). Worked great too.

poc




More information about the fedora-list mailing list