[lug] help starting simultaneous X servers

[Phil Rasch]

Hi All,

I asked for help a few hours ago on this on the Ubuntu Forums with no
luck.

Anybody got some advice for me? Here is a slightly revised version of
the post.
	
Thanks

Phil
  	
------------------------------------------

I want to be able to run simultaneous X servers on the same monitor
using two different displays (eg :0 and :1).

At least I think I do. Maybe you all have better suggestions. What I
really want to do is be able to switch "environments" with a hotkey
(in this case hitting the CTRL-ALT-Fn). One environment might be my
normal login. Another might be a QEMU session running a different
OS. A third environment would be a NX session on another computer. I
used to use this kind of strategy with win4lin for example, with great
success.

The reason that I dont just use normal hotkeys (via GNOME or KDE) is
because both QEMU and NX client grab the keyboard (except the
functions keys available with the virtual consoles!!!!) so I cant just
program in a normal response to a hotkey. Once displaying the QEMU or
NX session, the keystrokes are intercepted by QEMU or NX rather than
passed to my original desktop session manager, where I could do
something with them.

So, I have been trying to start up extra servers on VT8 or VT9
(following various posts on the net) and
switch with the CTRL-ALT-Fn syntax. I am trying to invoke the second
server using commands like startx or X but I dont have the magic to
get it when running gdm as the display manager. Here
is the output from entering those commands into an xterm.

Wed at 10:41[240]:startx -- :1 vt8
xauth: creating new authority file /home/pjr/.serverauth.31598
X: user not authorized to run the X server, aborting.
xinit: Server error.
Couldnt get a file descriptor referring to the console

or

Wed at 10:41[241]:X :1 vt8
X: user not authorized to run the X server, aborting.

I can get this working by switching to VT1, logging in and then
issuing the commands. Everything works OK that way. But I cant do it
from xterm. I figure that I either have to set something in the GDM
config file, set something for xauth, or set something in analogy to
the /etc/X11/xdm/Xservers file but I cant find any info on how to do
so. Can somebody help me out?

Thanks

Phil
  	
-- 
Phil Rasch, Climate Modeling Section, National Center for Atmospheric Research
Mail     --> P.O. Box 3000, Boulder CO 80307  
Shipping --> 1850 Table Mesa Dr, Boulder, CO 80305
email: pjr at ucar.edu, Web: http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cms/pjr Phone: 303-497-1368, FAX: 303-497-1324