Re: x window / starting the desktop

[hendrik@topoi.pooq.com]

On Tue, Jan 24, 2006 at 06:08:48PM +0200, Andrei Popescu wrote:
> On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 18:33:45 -0600
> Kent West <westk@acu.edu> wrote:
> 
> > thierry wrote:
> > 
> > > Kent West wrote:
> > 
> > >> Hope this helps you understand things.
> > >
> > > Thank you for these explanations, I was using, and wondering about all 
> > > this since I moved to linux,for over a year now. Thanks again.
> > >
> > Andrew Sackville-West wrote:
> > 
> > >Kent, that has to be one of the best down-and-dirty explanations I've ever seen. Certainly helped me a lot.
> > >  
> > >
> > Glad y'all got something out of it. I appreciate the comments.
> > 
> > Now, just for kicks, did you know you can start up multiple instances of 
> > X, on the same box (say, one for you, one for the wife, one for the kid, 
> > etc)?
> > 
> > Say you've logged into KDE. Switch to a virtual terminal (say, 
> > Ctrl-Alt-F2), and let the wife log in. Create/edit a "~/.initrc" file 
> > for her with the manager/environment of her choice, and then start X 
> > with "startx -- :1 &".
> > 
> > Ctrl-Alt-F3 to the third VT, and let the kid log in. Create/edit a 
> > "~/.xinitrc" for him, and "startx -- :2 &".
> > 
> > Now you've got three instances of X running; one for you, one for the 
> > wife, and one for the kid. You can switch between them with Ctrl-Alt-[ 
> > F7 | F8 | F9 ]. You can have KDE on one window, and Gnome on the other 
> > two. Or KDE and Gnome and Fluxbox. Put a password/screensaver on your 
> > screen to keep the kids and wife out of your setup. Now you no longer 
> > need to shut down your 14 programs and log out just so your kid can log 
> > in and play "beneath-a-steel-sky".
> > 
> > -- 
> > Kent
> > 
> > 
> > -- 
> > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST@lists.debian.org 
> > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org
> > 
> 
> That's about the same as the so much advertised "Switch User" feature in windoze XP. 
> The big difference is that Linux/X can do this for ages ;)

I've been using this feature for ages, until I started using gdm.  With a few 
configuration lines, it will do all this and give you separate login windows on each 
virtual console.

-- hendrik