Re: Multiple consoles

[Geert Uytterhoeven]

On Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 22:11, Phillip Susi <psusi@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I was considering some questions I read about setting up a multi-seat system
> where you have two separate sets of displays, keyboards, mice, and X
> servers. ÂThe problem someone noticed is that if you run the second X server
> on tty8, then you have to switch the console to tty8 to activate it, which
> disables the primary X server.
>
> It occurred to me that there ought to be an entirely separate set of virtual
> consoles bound to the second seat, and the second X server ought to run on
> one of those vcs. ÂOr of course, you could choose to log into the console
> and not bother with X.
>
> Looking at drivers/tty/vt/vt.c, it appears that it was written assuming that
> there is just one linux console. ÂIt appears to use global variables for
> keeping track of which vc is active, etc, rather than creating one or more
> console devices, and store the vc multiplexing information in those devices.
> ÂSo to fix this, vt.c and keyboard.c would need significantly refactored to
> remove the global variables and create a console device to bind vcs,
> keyboards, and displays to, and then you could create a second one if you
> wanted.
>
> Does this make sense or am I missing something?

The linux-console project tried to fix this (CC James added).

Gr{oetje,eeting}s,

            Geert

--
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that.
             Â Â -- Linus Torvalds
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