[Discuss] can one safely login multiple times to the same user on a modern Linux desktop?

[shankar.viswan at gmail.com (Shankar Viswanathan)]

On Sun, Sep 2, 2012 at 4:38 PM, Bill Bogstad <bogstad at pobox.com> wrote:
> Does anybody know if any version of GNOME, KDE, or equivalent system
> actively support such usage?

Not that I'm aware of. At work, I have to frequently login to other
machines to run simulations or benchmarks - I mostly do this via VNC,
but sometimes via console. We have a single NFS-mounted home directory
across the company. So I use Gnome on the workstation in my cube, but
then I cannot use it anywhere else.

I discussed this with Colin at the end of the last BLU meeting. The
issue is that Gnome wants control of the various .gnome* directories
in $HOME and so when a second instance starts up, it does not get the
lock and gets very upset. I suggested that the first instance started
should have the lock and be allowed to change settings, but all
subsequent instances could start in a "read-only" mode. He thinks this
could be an easy fix.


> Alternatively, are there any desktop environments which are known to work
> (even if not officially supported) and is there anything special required
> to make this happen?

I use fluxbox for all my VNC clients (quite easy to setup via the vnc
startup script) and I have had no issues with multiple simultaneous
fluxbox sessions. Since I mostly need just a few xterms to setup and
launch my jobs, I don't need any fancy eye candy. I don't even use a
file manager, just 'cd' and 'ls -l' in the terminal or dired mode in
emacs.


> Some applications (i.e. Firefox) are also problematic.   I've dealt with
> that  by having different profiles, but any other suggestions for Firefox
> would be appreciated.

I use the same "solution" as you. And mostly I just use 'lynx' to do
quick documentation lookups (from internal wiki).

-Shankar