Good multiseat software solution

Question

"A multiseat, multi-station or multiterminal configuration is a single computer which supports multiple independent users at the same time. The configuration typically consists in a set of input (e.g. keyboard and mouse) and output (e.g. monitor and headphones) devices for each user." -- Wikipedia.com

What are the best multiseat solutions that you know or you have used ? Ubuntu should support it, but it's not very easy to configure, and the final result is often "unsatisfactory" . Is it possible in Windows ?

Answer 1

NComputing offers solutions that allows you connect multiple displays and input devices to a single computer. This works under windows, but licensing under Windows gets pretty tricky. X-Series

Answer 2

More common is a thin client solution such as Citrix, a minimal OPC networked to a server which runs the software.

Answer 3

A Sun server running Solaris, with SunRay thinclients.

Answer 4

There's a "Free for personal use" multi-seat commercial product that achieves the same end goal with a stable end result with dramatically less effort (albeit at slightly higher cost).

Though the software is commercial (though an opensource project openuserful.sourceforge.net/ is in the works). it saves you money on hardware, allowing you to use $20/head video cards, and $5 USB keyboards and setup and configure it in 5 minutes.

How is Userful's product different from or better than other multi-seat approaches?

Userful's approach virtualizes a single instance of X to support multiple users. Other multi-seat approaches start separate instances of X (one for each user). The separate instance approach has the following limitations:

1. They don't support using both heads on consumer dual head cards. 2. They are very finicky about the graphics cards and chipsets supported. 3. They are less resource efficient (each instance of X imposes a RAM and CPU overhead).

Userful has been deploying multi-station Linux since early 2002 and developed some GPL'd kernel and X patches back in 2002 to help make multi-station work. Eventually they switched to this new approach because of the difficulties listed above.

Userful Multiplier package also includes some graphical install and configuration tools, cross distro testing and quality assurance, and builds RPM/DEB packages to make installation and removal on supported distros comparatively effortless.

the free version is available here: http://userful.com/products/free-2-user

Answer 5

Actualy theres 2 solutions:

Hybrid hardware/software soution there is the ApplicaDS (Windows) , Axel AX3000 (Windows and Linux), Wyse Thin teminals (Windows and linux), Userful (Linux), and multiseatcomputer.be (Ubuntu and Debian), some of that solutions connects thru free USB ports, other thru LAN card, other thru free internal PCI slots, and other are simply a complete mainframe/terminal solutions.

100% software solution (your PC must have enought free USB ports for mice and keyboard and a PCI or AGP dual monitor ready videocard), can use BeTwin under WXP or Vista (need aditional USB soundcard for each aditional user, if ýour PC doesn't already have a dual monitor ready videocard can use a dual or quad monitor PCI or a AGP videocard, I don't know if works with PCI-E videocards nor if is W7 compatible), Aster XP 4.5T (free for 2 users under WXP), sotfXpand (Windows) or simply can use the FREE multiseat function already included under Ubuntu and Devian...

The problem with most Windows solutions (hybrid hardware/software and software only) is that they can run only aplications like internet, office suits, media players and can´t run programs that use intensively OpenGL like games, all because the share of the videocard.

Answer 6

Fedora 12 will support multiseat natively and easily.

Answer 7

Windows Remote Desktop services, possibly boosted with Citrix Xen or whatever they've renamed Metaframe to these days - but I wouldn't run that on a "desktop" computer ^^

What is the purpose, traditional multi-seat where the "server" itself produces video output for all the clients seems a bit old-school actually... (though cool, in a steam punk way)

Answer 8

Yes with the the right hardware, a bit of luck, and lots of patience you can if you're lucky 1. Easy (automated & graphical) configuration 2. Diverse hardware support (e.g., onboard and single-chip dual head video cards) 3. high performance (Xypher, xnest etc. have very poor performance) 4. Audio & USB key support 5. Multi-seat features (Turn one PC into 2) 6. Free for personal use. Userful Multiplier has all these things. You can install it directly from Ubuntu Multiverse:

Answer 9

I'm using a comercial software called Buddy/BeTwin from from ThinSoft Inc.

Buddy runs on Windows XP and has a dongle hardlock so the licence can be relocated easily in case of hardware failure. BeTwin runs on Windows 7 and is tied to specific hardware by activation. No moving by deactivation-reactivation is allowed.

I regularly "duplicate" and "triplicate" machines using multiple PCI-e video cards. We teach Google SketchUp (a software highly dependent on OpenGL 3D graphics acceleration) using this set up.

You need an extra Buddy/BeTwin license for each seat/"station" added to the "host" machine (Duplication needs one license, triplication neads two).

I've heard of Microsoft Windows Multipoint Server but couldn't test it yet.

If you don't need Windows this wiki.x.org/wiki/Development/Documentation/Multiseat lists Linux solutions (of wich I have no experience).

Answer 10

I have recently found new soft for making 8 work station by using 1 PC. Does any body check this out.It is available here http://friendlyseats.com/en Can you recommend another soft like this (cheaper or free:))))