[lug] help starting simultaneous X servers

[Michael J. Hammel]

On Wed, 2006-01-04 at 14:15 -0700, Phil Rasch wrote:
> 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.

I don't know much about QEMU or NX, but there are various methods of
doing similar things.  A second X session can be started under the
current X session using XNest.  I haven't used this but I've seen it
used and it seems to work fine.  This would be another X session under
the current one.  There is an online article about this on Linux
Journal's web site:  http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7298

Running a different OS would be done with VMWare (commercial) or Xen
(open source).  I use VMWare at work to run Windows under my current X
session.  Alternatively, if you have a separate system on your network
running a Windows environment you can display that desktop under your
current X session using rdesktop.
Xen: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/SRG/netos/xen/
rdesktop: http://www.rdesktop.org/

Running a second X session on a different logical screen (the first
number is the server and the second is the display) would be easiest
without gdm or other login managers.  Just login using the text
consolers and use startx to launch the X session and pass it the display
number to use:

startx -- 0:1

I haven't used this in a looong while, but it's still noted in the
startx man page on FC3, so maybe it still works.  See also the man page
for xinit, for which startx is just a wrapper.
-- 
Michael J. Hammel           |
The Graphics Muse           |   Chinese Proverb:
mjhammel at graphics-muse.org  |      Man who lives in glass house should change
http://www.graphics-muse.com       in basement.