Hacks 16-21
Personal computers are no longer as personal as they used to be. You
might have a family computer, for example, and each member of the
family uses the computer with his own personal account. In this case,
at one time or another you will encounter this conversation, or
something like it: "I need to use the
computer." "But
I'm right in the middle of typing my school
report." "This
can't wait, you need to log off and let me use it
now!"
If you are ever caught in a situation in which you have to
relinquish control of your computer to another person, it seems both
logical and natural that you should close all your applications and
log out before allowing the other person to access the computer. That
isn't necessary with Linux. Linux is truly
multiuser. You can have two or more people logged in to the same
computer at the same time, even running separate graphical desktops
at the same time. You don't have to close all your
applications and log out. All you have to do to relinquish control to
another person is to lock your session (for security purposes), and
then let the next person start up his own session.
In some cases, desktop environments, such as KDE and GNOME, provide
you with a handy menu option that will let someone start another
desktop session. If your Linux distribution doesn't
provide you with that easy method, don't worry. The
following hacks will show you how you can set up two or more KDE or
GNOME graphical login screens, where each user can start up her own
session isolated from any other sessions that are running.
I've even provided a method for the staunch power
user who resists point-and-click in favor of a command-line approach.
Finally, these hacks introduce a whole new approach to graphical
login screens. These screens replace the dull text login prompt with
a graphical frame-buffer console prompt that lets you start up
anything from plain-text consoles to window managers or desktop
environments such as KDE and GNOME. You can set up as many of these
login screens as you want, and each one will start up a separate user
session. You can even customize the graphical look and feel of each
login screen.
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