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Multi-Head, Multi-User Killer GNU/Linux App Languishes (LinuxMedNews)
LinuxMedNews looks
at multi-head, the killer application in health care.
"Multi-head, multi-user systems running off a single PC. This is
where multiple displays, keyboards and mice can be attached to a single PC
with multiple users all working simultaneously from one system unit. This
can dramatically lower the cost of an individual workstations as well as
the cost to support individual workstations. This setup is becoming more
and more viable as hardware power increases."
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Unfortunate terminology Posted Oct 10, 2008 22:14 UTC (Fri) by BenHutchings (subscriber, #37955) [Link]
"killer application in health care"?!
Unfortunate terminology Posted Oct 11, 2008 3:46 UTC (Sat) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767) [Link]
Reminds me of an old public service commercial from the 70s that my father and I used to get a kick out of. It starts out with the narrator saying "Scientists in laboratories around the world are working on discoveries which would take your breath away..." :-0
Long live mainframes! Posted Oct 11, 2008 4:14 UTC (Sat) by mmcgrath (subscriber, #44906) [Link]
I hope everything is in a tinted shade of green.
Multi-Head, Multi-User Killer GNU/Linux App Languishes (LinuxMedNews) Posted Oct 11, 2008 5:09 UTC (Sat) by jd (guest, #26381) [Link]
Health-care has invented the minicomputer? NCDs/X Workstations? It's not altogether clear to me what it is that has actually been done here, so I'm guessing I'm missing something. Anyone want to fill me in?
If it is something genuinely novel, is it a "killer app" that's listed on any of the popular software indexes or announced on LWN? Have they provided suitable package metadata files for Fedora and/or Debian? (If nobody knows the software is there, the only thing it's going to kill is the maintainer's patience. Or, in the case of healthcare...)
The article says it's not possible Posted Oct 11, 2008 15:41 UTC (Sat) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link] Multi-seat systems have always been a natural fit for the multiuser, Unix way of doing things. It's not just health care that could benefit but schools and universities where there are rooms full of PCs. By plugging four keyboards and monitors into one (very slightly higher-spec) PC you could cut your hardware costs in half at least.But the article is really just a note saying the author has tried and failed many times to make such a setup. The Ruby multiseat patches have existed for a long time but never AFAIK have been picked up by any mainstream distribution.
state of the art Posted Oct 17, 2008 2:17 UTC (Fri) by dmag (subscriber, #17775) [Link]
It doesn't seem like this requires any kernel patches.
First, setup virtualization (KVM, Xen, Open-VZ, UML, Vserver, Qemu, etc.) for each user, which will handle 99% of the work. Next, let each emulated OS "own" a USB keyboard/mouse (at least Qemu supports this today), so typing goes to the correct window. Last, setup the host OS as multi-display, and hard-code the applications to go on their respective display screens (worst case, run X 3 times). I'm sure you can do sound too, if you have multiple sound cards. (You can get USB ones these days.)
Pro: Users can reboot their workstations and even run any OS.
Con: Probably doesn't do 3D. But fine for business users and non-3d home use. (I currently have no 3D because the stupid NVidia binary driver makes my system unstable.)
Am I missing something?
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