2 person using Mac Pro at the same time?

[Neptunian]

I'm looking for a computer that can let 2 users doing 2 different work at the same time. Which means, I want to have 2 displays with 2 keyboards and 2 mice connected to the same CPU, but doing different thing. Is it possible to do this on a Mac Pro running on Mac OS X Leopard? Hope you understand my question...

"Example: I have 2 displays with 2 keyboards and 2 mice connected to a Mac Pro. User A will use one of the display, keyboard and mouse to edit photos, while user B will use the other display, keyboard and mouse on a different work (e.g. surfing Net)."

What else should I need in order to do this. Additional hardware or software? Hope someone can help me. thanks a lot in advance....

 

[Cromulent]

I'm looking for a computer that can let 2 users doing 2 different work at the same time. Which means, I want to have 2 displays with 2 keyboards and 2 mice connected to the same CPU, but doing different thing. Is it possible to do this on a Mac Pro running on Mac OS X Leopard? Hope you understand my question...

"Example: I have 2 displays with 2 keyboards and 2 mice connected to a Mac Pro. User A will use one of the display, keyboard and mouse to edit photos, while user B will use the other display, keyboard and mouse on a different work (e.g. surfing Net)."

What else should I need in order to do this. Additional hardware or software? Hope someone can help me. thanks a lot in advance....

Why don't you just use the Mac Pro as a server and let a couple of Mac Minis netboot from it? Would probably be a damn sight easier to setup.

 

[Doktag]

What you have described is basically impossible, on any system.

Why do you want to do this?

 

[Mackilroy]

As far as I know OS X will only accept input from one mouse at a time… sure, you could hook up more than one, but you would still only be able to use one.

 

[Macaugweilo]

Should be possible!

I know what you are trying to do, I want to do the same for my new Mac Pro.
I am new to Mac, the pro is my first. But, I think you will not find a way to do this where you can just run 2 KVM's from one computer.

I have used this setup for years in my office on windows to get multiple users on the same server. The trick is you will have to have two low powered clients like the previous post mentioned using two Mac minis.

REMOTE DESKTOP! Wow, that was easy, up to 3 users can run unique sessions on any Windows server, and it is free and included in W2K W2K3 server.

We use this as all our rack mounted servers are sharing one KVM console, we can get multiple sessions running from our XP laptops to the server just by starting Windows Remote Connection.

Does Mac OSX not have such a solution?

 

[65StangBoy]

I know what you are trying to do, I want to do the same for my new Mac Pro.
I am new to Mac, the pro is my first. But, I think you will not find a way to do this where you can just run 2 KVM's from one computer.

I have used this setup for years in my office on windows to get multiple users on the same server. The trick is you will have to have two low powered clients like the previous post mentioned using two Mac minis.

REMOTE DESKTOP! Wow, that was easy, up to 3 users can run unique sessions on any Windows server, and it is free and included in W2K W2K3 server.

We use this as all our rack mounted servers are sharing one KVM console, we can get multiple sessions running from our XP laptops to the server just by starting Windows Remote Connection.

Does Mac OSX not have such a solution?

Unfortunately, OSX isn't a multi-user OS unlike the Windows server OS's.

 

[rtrt]

a

 

[Cromulent]

Unfortunately, OSX isn't a multi-user OS unlike the Windows server OS's.

Err, yes it is. It is UNIX which was the original multi-user OS.

 

[dgdosen]

Err, yes it is. It is UNIX which was the original multi-user OS.

What software can take advantage of it?

There's Parallels, VMWare Fusion and Virtual PC for the mac to allow you to run other Windows VMs

On the PC side, you have VMWare Workstation, Virtual PC and Virtual Server that allow you to run Windows or Linux VMs...

Just no Mac - I wish you could, as I think there'd be a market for it! Think of the additional licensing fees Apple could generate. Somebody should tell Steve to get on it.

 

[Cromulent]

What software can take advantage of it?

There's Parallels, VMWare Fusion and Virtual PC for the mac to allow you to run other Windows VMs

On the PC side, you have VMWare Workstation, Virtual PC and Virtual Server that allow you to run Windows or Linux VMs...

Just no Mac - I wish you could, as I think there'd be a market for it! Think of the additional licensing fees Apple could generate. Somebody should tell Steve to get on it.

I have no idea what you are talking about. None of that software you mentioned has anything to do with "taking advantage of a multi-user OS". A multi-user OS (as the name implies) is an operating system that allows more than one user to login and use the computer at the same time (normally via SSH or whatever).

The software you mentioned above are just virtual machines to run another OS inside of the host OS.

 

[aaronw1986]

I have no idea what you are talking about. None of that software you mentioned has anything to do with "taking advantage of a multi-user OS". A multi-user OS (as the name implies) is an operating system that allows more than one user to login and use the computer at the same time (normally via SSH or whatever).

The software you mentioned above are just virtual machines to run another OS inside of the host OS.

I agree, I was very confused by the previous post also.

 

[Cabbit]

A mac pro can do this however you would need Solaris as it is the only Unix OS i know that easily supports this. I would think that somewhere in OSX this would be possible but it dose not seem to be enabled for end users.

 

[65StangBoy]

Err, yes it is. It is UNIX which was the original multi-user OS.

Sorry, I guess I should have specified. There's no multi user support for the GUI. You can't have multiple ARD users connected to one machine without them all seeing the same thing, unlike Terminal Services in the Windows world. Of course there's multi user support via SSH but thats not what the OP had in mind.

 

[ChrisA]

What you have described is basically impossible, on any system.

What!!??

We do this routinely on a large scale. One system I worked on back in the early 1980's had over 200 displays connected to it. Yes 200 uesrs all doing unrelated work on the same computer. Then along came the IBM PC and at only about $3500 it was cheap enough the one person could own an entire computers. Of course it was slow as all getout.

Today, they are still building those mainframe machines but they are also building smaller machines too.

Macs Run UNIX. UNIX dates from the late 1960's but really came of age in the 70's. Back then NOONE had their own machine. UNIX was designed from the ground up to allow a single machine to be shared between many users. This is partially why the security model is so good. UNIX was not designed to "keep others out" but to allow them on and keep all the users isolated.

 

[Cromulent]

Sorry, I guess I should have specified. There's no multi user support for the GUI. You can't have multiple ARD users connected to one machine without them all seeing the same thing, unlike Terminal Services in the Windows world. Of course there's multi user support via SSH but thats not what the OP had in mind.

It has X11 which is a multi-user GUI.

 

[4JNA]

I'm looking for a computer that can let 2 users doing 2 different work at the same time. Which means, I want to have 2 displays with 2 keyboards and 2 mice connected to the same CPU, but doing different thing. Is it possible to do this on a Mac Pro running on Mac OS X Leopard? Hope you understand my question...

"Example: I have 2 displays with 2 keyboards and 2 mice connected to a Mac Pro. User A will use one of the display, keyboard and mouse to edit photos, while user B will use the other display, keyboard and mouse on a different work (e.g. surfing Net)."

What else should I need in order to do this. Additional hardware or software? Hope someone can help me. thanks a lot in advance....

windows, yes. HERE is a cheap/easy way to do that very thing. More expensive, but HERE they send you everything you need in one package. they should call it the 'BSOD quad package'.

OS X, no. or at least not yet. beta/pre-release HERE, but you could at least try the demo. you would still need a second machine to use as the 'thin client' part, so don't know how cost effective this would be for only 2 users.

best of luck.

 

[Macaugweilo]

Great!

4JNA hit the nail on the head here with this Aqua Connect. This is what I want for my new Mac Pro. This would allow the graphics designer who all sets at a Windows XP client to answer their email, surf the web, play mine sweeper , to just open Aqua. Then then they could run Painter, Maya, PageMaker, or whatever other Mac app they need. This would eliminate the need for a XP PC on one side of the desk, and a Mac on the other side of the desk.

 

[CanadaRAM]

But of course, for any professional graphics work, performance would suck, defeating the purpose.

 

[4JNA]

forget'about'it. yo, really!

...performance would suck, defeating the purpose.

forget professional, 'ANY' graphics work would suck. don't know if anyone has used a terminal server client, but anything other that email/basic internet is a total loss. really. even windows media crap won't work, much less 3d stuff or adobe stuff. really. no, REALLY! don't even thing about it.

basic desktop, email, non-flash internet, no graphics, not even a good game of solitaire... you get the idea. and this is the 'best case'.

 

[greenmeanie]

They where doing this with terminals on a imsai 8080 LOL

What!!??

We do this routinely on a large scale. One system I worked on back in the early 1980's had over 200 displays connected to it. Yes 200 uesrs all doing unrelated work on the same computer. Then along came the IBM PC and at only about $3500 it was cheap enough the one person could own an entire computers. Of course it was slow as all getout.

Today, they are still building those mainframe machines but they are also building smaller machines too.

Macs Run UNIX. UNIX dates from the late 1960's but really came of age in the 70's. Back then NOONE had their own machine. UNIX was designed from the ground up to allow a single machine to be shared between many users. This is partially why the security model is so good. UNIX was not designed to "keep others out" but to allow them on and keep all the users isolated.

 

[Kosh66]

What!!??

We do this routinely on a large scale. One system I worked on back in the early 1980's had over 200 displays connected to it. Yes 200 uesrs all doing unrelated work on the same computer. Then along came the IBM PC and at only about $3500 it was cheap enough the one person could own an entire computers. Of course it was slow as all getout.

Today, they are still building those mainframe machines but they are also building smaller machines too.

Macs Run UNIX. UNIX dates from the late 1960's but really came of age in the 70's. Back then NOONE had their own machine. UNIX was designed from the ground up to allow a single machine to be shared between many users. This is partially why the security model is so good. UNIX was not designed to "keep others out" but to allow them on and keep all the users isolated.

Actually Macs run MacOS X, which is based on Unix. MacOS X doesn't have all the features of Unix.

I know what you're talking about, I worked on a small Unix server in University, with several terminals hooked to it, but a Mac is not that. It probably could be a Unix server, if you install Unix of some sort, but you still need terminals, and in todays world, I doubt you'll find terminals like the old days, you'll probably have to use a smaller computer. Even at work, with the mainframe, which is a real multi-user system, we use computers and a terminal emulation software.

You can do something similar to multi-users on the MacOS, but it's strictly one user at a time.

 

[Cromulent]

Actually Macs run MacOS X, which is based on Unix. MacOS X doesn't have all the features of Unix.

Mac OS X Leopard is fully compliant with the UNIX specification. Therefore it is UNIX.

Which features do you think Mac OS X is lacking that other UNIX systems have?

I know what you're talking about, I worked on a small Unix server in University, with several terminals hooked to it, but a Mac is not that. It probably could be a Unix server, if you install Unix of some sort, but you still need terminals, and in todays world, I doubt you'll find terminals like the old days, you'll probably have to use a smaller computer. Even at work, with the mainframe, which is a real multi-user system, we use computers and a terminal emulation software.

You can run dumb terminals off Mac OS X Server using Net Boot, which is just Apples name for the PXE protocol.

Taken from Apple.com

Starting up with NetBoot.

The NetBoot service in Mac OS X Server enables multiple Mac systems to boot from a single server-based disk image, instead of from their internal hard drive. This allows you to create a standard configuration and use it on all of the desktop systems in a department or classroom — or host multiple images customized for different workgroups. You can even create server configurations and run all of your servers from one image. Updating the disk image on the NetBoot server updates all of these systems automatically the next time they restart. In addition, you can copy a directory server configuration to all clients using the same system image. For security-conscious organizations, NetBoot permits Mac computers to boot “disklessly” — without having to read from or write to the computer’s local drive.

You can do something similar to multi-users on the MacOS, but it's strictly one user at a time.

Incorrect. Mac OS X is a fully multi-user enabled operating system. Supporting simultaneous users on the same computer.

 

[Mr. Zarniwoop]

Multiuser Mac OS X

I've played with this using a VNC solution. Here's some background of how to set it up:

Multiple Desktop Sessions on Mac OS X

Some caveats:

• Sound... audio isn't sent over VNC so the "primary" user hears any sounds generated by VNC users
• Different desktop sizes seem to screw up the "primary" user
• Keyboard state can often be a PITA... if the "primary" user is holding Shift, for example, depending on the application, the VNC users all unintentionally are holding Shift down too!

More tips with techniques targeted at MYOB, but helpful if you're seriously going to try working this way:

Running Same Application Multi-User on Mac OS X

 

[cw2k7]

It's possible with Linux: http://userful.com/products/free-2-user

It's free for the 2 user version.

They also do a paid version that supports upto 10 users on 1 pc.

 

[saltyzoo]

The amount of inaccurate statements in this thread is reaching epic proportions. I think there are more posts that are incorrect than there are correct.

I'm going to stick to correcting just one.

Actually Macs run MacOS X, which is based on Unix. MacOS X doesn't have all the features of Unix.

Wrong. OSX is built on Unix. It has all the standard features of unix plus the OSX GUI on top of that.

I know what you're talking about, I worked on a small Unix server in University, with several terminals hooked to it, but a Mac is not that. It probably could be a Unix server, if you install Unix of some sort, but you still need terminals, and in todays world, I doubt you'll find terminals like the old days, you'll probably have to use a smaller computer. Even at work, with the mainframe, which is a real multi-user system, we use computers and a terminal emulation software.

You can connect terminals to a mac, but then the question becomes "why". An X11 terminal isn't cheap, and unless you are running X11 applications you aren't going to be able do what you want anyway. The OSX GUI is not multi-user.

OSX on the other hand IS multi-user. You can connect to it as multiple users via ssh, X11, HTTP, etc. It is only the OSX GUI that is not multi-user.

You can do something similar to multi-users on the MacOS, but it's strictly one user at a time.

I think this is eluding to the fact that you can "switch" users on OSX. You can start up programs as one user, and switch to another user and leave those applications running and doing their jobs, while you do other work on the second user. However, you cannot interactively use the GUI with two users at the same time.