Ask HN: Why is multi-seat not available out of the box for Linux?

2 points by taatparya 4 years ago | 7 comments

This seems a no-brainer but can't anything ready made. Will be a boon for developing countries. Something already exists for Windows which was quite good in trial: https://ibiksoft.com/

KZerda 4 years ago |

Honestly, I think one of the biggest reasons is that it just became easier and cheaper in the linux world to throw a stack of raspberry pis at the problem. Windows, multi-seat became advantageous because the cheapest Windows box was at least a couple hundred dollars. Linux, however, why bother messing with a stack of $100 multi-seat adapters when a pi, memory stick, and power supply is $50? Had the pi and similar super cheap boxes not come out, I imagine you'd have seen more work polishing up the multi-seat experience to be extremely seamless, but a lot of that work just wasn't needed.

daviddever23box 4 years ago |

Android tablets are cheaper and consume less power than some free-standing monitors; throw in a keyboard and mouse and the multi-seat cost ceases to make sense.

For the Linux developer use case, where a keyboard (and less so a mouse) is required, multi-seat only makes sense if you are cramming a large number of developers into a small space (which is less desirable during a global pandemic).

Comevius 4 years ago |

Multi-seat is supported by systemd, and both X and Wayland.

https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/loginctl.ht...

It can be done without systemd too, kmscon for example supports multi-seat.

https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/kmscon/

h2odragon 4 years ago |

Multi-seat? You mean a string of terminals off one box? I had that on a Linux 2.0 machine in 1996... vt220's are gonna be a bit harder to find now, prolly hafta use more modern ones.

taatparya 4 years ago | |

Not just terminal but the full desktop experience.

throwawayvibes 4 years ago |

This is not a very subtle shilling of your product.

speedgoose 4 years ago |

Because the demand is low. If developing countries wants multi seat on Linux, they can develop it.