Re: [OT] True multiuser?
Re: [OT] True multiuser?
- Subject: Re: [OT] True multiuser?
- From: Andy Satori <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2003 14:37:05 -0500
Comments inlined.
On Dec 22, 2003, at 11:44 AM, Shawn Erickson wrote:
>
On Dec 22, 2003, at 4:42 AM, Peter Estrand wrote:
>
>
> We all know that OS X isn't capable of true multiuser yet: It's not
>
> possible for several users to interact, at the same time, with
>
> applications running on an OS X system. There are no third-party
>
> addons
>
> that can fix this: There is no "Citrix Metaframe for OS X" or "OS X
>
> terminal server" available.
>
>
Note Microsoft licenses/ed Citrix stuff for windows.
Further, this application has issues with many applications not
specifically designed to deal with it, including anything that use the
Jet database engine for an Access database, as well as any Visual Basic
application that uses the default registry settings, as it writes to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE rather than HKEY_CURRENT_USER. This is the same
situation as a OS X application storing it's user preferences in
/Library/Preferences rather than ~/Library/Preferences.
>
>
> Lots of people hoped for Panther and/or "Apple
>
> Remote Desktop" to solve this problem, but it didn't, and people was
>
> disappointed. A "-NXHost" option was available in NeXTStep, but
>
> doesn't
>
> work anymore (why?).
>
>
Maintaining NXHost given the large amount of changes made in the
>
windowing system since NeXTStep just wasn't in the cards I guess. In
>
general very few Windows customers know anything about terminal
>
services it is still in the realm of power users, many other services
>
in the OS are more important before tackling this.
not only that, this is functionality that really doesn't belong in the
desktop, consumer level operating system, it's functionality that
doesn't exist in Windows XP the way you think it does.
>
> So, true multiuser is impossible, but *how* impossible? Ideally, I
>
> want to
>
> be able to use old Xterminals to connect to a OS X machine. This
>
> could be
>
> achived by letting the WindowServer communicate with an Xserver
>
> instead of
>
> a graphics card. The WindowServer + graphics driver would be an X11
>
> client
>
> in this case.
>
>
>
> Also, as I understand it, there has to be one WindowServer process per
>
> user. How much impossible is this? I've noticed that there is no
>
> DISPLAY
>
> variable any longer. Is WindowServer using a fixed mach messaging
>
> port, or
>
> would it be possible to have several WindowServers on different ports?
>
Considering the graphical demands of Quartz and Quartz Extreme, it's
going to require a beast of an XTerm to handle displaying the Aqua user
interface. The only way this would work would be through a
screenscrape and remoted display, without any of the animations. Very
much like VNC.
Now all of that said, it would be nice to have this functionality in a
server, but on the desktop, it simply doesn't make much sense unless
you are tying it with, wireless, display only devices, but even then,
it's more of a 'remote control' environment than a 2 users at once
environment, this is how 'Mira' the Windows version of this works.
A couple of side notes:
(*) on Windows XP, Remote Desktop will lock the interactive session
of the local user when another user connects remotely, unless it a
remote control session.
(*) on Windows Server 2003, you are limited to 2 interactive session
unless you purchase additional terminal services licenses
(*) on Windows 2000 Server the behaviour is the same as 2003.
(*) Mira does not lock the interactive session.
(*) It is possible to alter the XP behavior through an unsupported
hack that violates the EULA.
In other words, the only difference between Windows XP and OS X in this
regard is that Windows supports single remote connections out of the
box, Apple requires the additional purchase of Apple Remote Desktop.
From a developer perspective, Apple is making things easier for the
future when this might make sense for them by educating developer not
to practice bad habits, while Windows developers are still using tools
that perpetuate bad habits. .NET eliminates many of these issues, but
VB6 still dominates business windows code.
There you have it, my .02 worth.
[demime 0.98b removed an attachment of type application/pkcs7-signature which had a name of smime.p7s]
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