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I basically need a setup where many touch screen monitors run an application. So instead of hooking up each monitor to a mini-server of it's own, I was wondering if I could run those applications on monitors off of a single server. The application is platform-independent. Any ideas?

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Certainly with Linux its possible - the X Window system was designed around exactly that kind of operation although it will probably be significantly simpler to use X-Terminals rather than driving all the screens directly from the host machine (a X-Terminal requires very litle hardware - a gumstick PC is more than adequate).

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  • I have a basic idea about what the X-Terminal is. But I'm not quite sure how I would go about setting it up. Is X-Terminal a Linux package? How do I run an application on X-Terminal?
    – gAMBOOKa
    Sep 21, 2010 at 9:53
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    ltsp.org or have a google for 'kiosk X Terminal'
    – symcbean
    Sep 21, 2010 at 12:12
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    Or iPads + vnc for a really simple setup
    – symcbean
    Sep 21, 2010 at 12:15
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Would it make sense to run a seperate VM for each monitor - with the VM set to load full screen?

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  • Would it? Seems like that would be a lot of overhead for the trade-off of redundancy to me. But it depends on what the specific needs of the OP are I guess. And the application itself. Sep 21, 2010 at 18:03
  • No I don't think it would I use VM's for all kind of stuff but that seems like a bad plan to me. Multi-headed X with separate input channels would do the trick with one parent environment instead of vm's.
    – Caleb
    Oct 4, 2010 at 15:52
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Possible with Linux (check out multiheading), but I suspect it's more trouble than it's worth. You'll be well off the beaten path, and likely to find things that only work under specific conditions and/or are unstable.

I recommend instead getting a bunch of cheap nettop PCs and throwing Linux on them so they're not annoyingly slow to use. I can vouch for Acer Revos (as a HTPC in my case), but you can probably find something cheaper that will work fine for your needs.

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  • I second this suggestion that while it is fully possible to do in linux using multiple input devices and multiple head x arrangements, this is probably not the most stable or failsafe arrangement nor most economic when you consider your time involved. And yes I've set it up successfully myself, so I say that from experience.
    – Caleb
    Oct 4, 2010 at 15:51
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Usually touch screens work as mice. So it depends on your application; can you run multiple instances of it at the same time? I have applications will, and I have some that detect it's already open and refuse to open a separate instance.

It also depends on how the application works (if it uses a database in the background or a particular config file, again, it depends on how it does it, it may not be able to have concurrent access for running instances).

Basically test it and see if you can run multiple instances and if it can, you may be able to do it. Touch screens are simply using your finger as a mouse.

Although...this does bring up the question of whether you can have multiple simultaneous mice. You might get the occasional "weirdness" with multiple touches at the same time.

Also, keep in mind that if you have 2 monitors and 2 instances on one system and that system crashes/acts odd/dies, you lose everything. With multiple low end systems at least you have a working node while repairing the other one.

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  • I can run multiple instances, yes. But there are two challenges with that method. First, like you said, having multiple cursors. I think Windows 7 has multi-touch support, but that is probably designed for gestures. And second, the applications would keep stealing focus from one another.
    – gAMBOOKa
    Sep 21, 2010 at 9:49
  • I'd say that if the application wasn't made for this, then chances are that no, you won't find a suitable way to do this. Sep 21, 2010 at 11:28

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