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Panther: Multiple Graphical Logins?

This is a good feature

This is a very useful feature if you share your computer with more than one person and would like to switch user profiles and access frequently without restarting. This is one of the features I liked on Windows XP.
 
Originally posted by paulwhannel
Of course it's the same thing, OS X is built on the UNIX standards for remote terminals. The majority of us just use it as a normal computer. Macs also support remote booting, and this is like a hybrid of the two. it would just be really nice if we could access the GUI as multiple users at once, just like the terminal... as people have mentioned above, it could also be used just like fat/thin clients...

pnw
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Actually, I think, this rumor is somewhat misleading because MOSR makes some incorrect assumptions about remoting. I believe that this is more like the multiple *local* graphical logins per machine feature the XP has. This is implemented at the window-manager level, rather than as a client/server system, a la X. Multiple users can be logged on on a single keyboard/monitor unit (terminal) at the same time, so when you go watch some TV, you can "background" all your processes, let your roommate log in to check email, then come back later, log in, and have everything right where you left it, and it all has been sitting in memory the whole time. Also, you could leave complex calculations running in the background.

OSX can already act as a remote X server (or client, in the bizare X terminology) with apples X package or XonX. Apple may add remoting to the native OSX window manager as well, but I suspect this rumor isn't about that functionality. (And the industry trend seems to be remoting an entire desktop, rather than just individual windows. Besides, apple already has remote desktop, right? Why muddle the waters more?)

To be honest, I think that multiple local logins would be more useful to the larger market. Remoting isn't used much in practice outside the hardcore *nix world (or which I like to think I'm a part), and X already does that reasonable well.

At least, that's how *I* understand it. Could be wrong.

Cheers,
prat
 
wow

28 positives, zero negatives.... I'm tempted to do a negative just to be the first one... NAH, I won't.
This whole idea of little wireless stations all logged in at a main terminal simultaneously sounds nice, but realistically how well are these little tablets (or whatever they are) going to run? One of the major complaints i've heard about those MS tablets that get their info wirelessly from a base is that the display info bogs down coming through the wireless connection... it isn't fast enough to day anything remotely high FPS... video, is choppy and games that use serious 3d graphics are impossible. Games would not be necessary for these wireless tablets to be useful, but the ability to play some music, while at the same time type something and keep up a couple of other apps in the background would be necessary. I don't know if even Airport extreme is up to that.
BTW, does airport extreme's networking speed change at all depending on the number of users that connect and are sharing info with a base -- I mean like is the total bandwidth shared, or will all sharers get the total bandwidth no matter what ?
 
Originally posted by vniow
This is cool, one of the features of XP I actually like, useful when doing remote desktop from my Mac and such..

Oh, and this is from MacOSrumors?

I haven't seen something from them on the front page since Page 2 was created, this must have some credibility behind it!
attachment.php
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Crap, you're right. I hadn't noticed the source. Oh well, scratch that feature :( (unless, of course, mosr actually guessed right for once...)
 
Originally posted by timbloom
One thing that I have always wished for was for me to be able to have dual sessions (even under the same account if willed) on two different screens on a dual-headed card, running independantly from one another. This way I would be able to make modifications as root on one screen and be a regular administrator on the other, or basically have 2 different machines if somebody else wanted to surf the web or type up something, while I was working on a project.

It may not be useful to everyone in that aspect, but it would to some users, and others could surely find their own ways to use it.

Of course, the OS would have to determine what mouse and keyboard goes to what session....
Click to expand...

for this you ought to check out
http://www.userful.com
 
seems like a solid, easy guess. apple's certainly been criticized for not offering this yet; it would be a shame for them to go another release without incorporating the feature.
 
Originally posted by wheezl
Well not *really* the same thing. And not actually related to remote booting in any way. And Aqua != X11 even though Apple's X11 integrates very nicely.

My guess is that this will be an Aqua Specific ARD based thing rather than any UNIX Standard or anything related to X11.
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all true, i just meant that OS X uses the same text-based interface at it's most basic that UNIX does, and that you can give people access to your computer just like a UNIX computer or server... give people accounts and let them use your services. From there it's not a big jump to individual GUI interfaces... and from there it's another jump to giving remote individual GUI access... which would be especially handy in the case of completely dumb terminals, which would be great in the corporate world... which is kind of like remote booting :) see, isn't that simple?

i should go to bed... hehe...

pnw
 
Dear Macs and Macettes

This Is my first offical post as inish. Soon as i get the hang of this more replys will be made!
 
Originally posted by inish
Dear Macs and Macettes

This Is my first offical post as inish. Soon as i get the hang of this more replys will be made!
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congrats nish, you need to get that powerbook so you can join us from a real computer,lol.

iJon
 
Not a big leap.

DisplayPostscript, which OPENSTEP was, allowed for remote displaying of Apps via the -NXHost parameter to any GUI app (well asside from those that did direct video manipulation). Perhaps because of the way Quartz was written in the past it didn't make sense to do the same with DisplayPDF? Maybe now that there was a pretty major rewrite of some of the GUI routines internally, for ExtReeeeeeeMEEEEEeeee, the other code to enable such a thing was fixed. (I say fixed because it should have been there from the start)

Enabling multiple users to share the GUI would mean that all those programs left open would still need to be able to update a virtual framebuffer somewhere, so thats going to cost ram on something. On the plus side there would be no good reason why you couldn't easily have multiple virtual desktops at arbitrary resolutions.

My only concern is that they figure out a way or at least establish a standard for stupid programs that always launch themselves upon every user's login to the machine. This can be quite annoying on XP boxes with print manager software when they cheerfully tell you via a series of popups that 1293182983 print programs are already running.
 
With Apple trying to move into the corporate market this makes sense. Really big companies don't always put a desktop computer on every workers desk, just a thin client connected to a server. Althoughfor something like this Apple may need a quad proccessor Xserve with 970s.
 
I like the idea of XP's fast user switching-wonders how Apple's version will work-maybe you may need sbiut 266mb to use it or thre loginpsnel could be larger-list vieww for more than the users the windowcan hold.
 
ooooh, i like this. Wouldn't have to logout/in for my wife to check mail.

I'd also love a tablet to do casual surfing on the couch w/o spending the price of a full blown laptop.
 
multiple desktops

One thing I would like more than multi-gui-logins
is multiple desktops. This is the one thing I loved
from YD linux. I can even do it on winXP with the sw
provided with my Quadro4 card.

Multiple desktops matched with this feature would
REALLY rock. We have a video station at work that gets
a lot of use. It would be nice to be able to run processes
running in the bg (compression) while another user is editing video in the foreground (taking priority of system resources
over any bg processes).
 
Wouldn't it make sense that this features takes advantage of the proposed file journaling that 10.3 will be inheriting from BeOS? From what I've read, you could be working on your computer, have 20 apps open (or more/less) and pull the plug. Booting back up, you are exactly where you left off, all data intact, windows in the same place, etc. If it can work for that, wouldn't it be simple to implement in a multiple-user setting? Seemingly, since it would be using file-journaling, it wouldn't suck processor, either. Does this make a whole lot of sense to anyone else, or is it just me?
 
happy families

Imagine this ad:

Buy one computer, let the whole family surf/work/IM/email/internet telephone/and yes: work too.

This would end up allowing families to justify buying the larger PM's rather than just iMacs or iBooks.

So, buy multiple windows machines and the software, or one large mac and some tablets? Now who's more expensive?
 
Well, if this is the same concurrent sessions features from XP, then I'd be really happy. My gf is always checking her email under my account, but I'm afraid she'll clutter up my Address Book :(

It's the only feature from XP that I actually like and given the fact that it would be even easier to implement under Unix (XWindows) than in Windows, I'm amazed that nobody else thought of it earlier.

But then again, Unix has always concentrated on remote users and Windows on local users.
 
Although I see the uses for business in this as already highlighted, this excites me more for home use, incorperated into the 'digital hub'. I think we will have to wait for the 970 however for it to be full realised as it could be a resource hog...I'd like ultimatly to see a powerful xServe used as a home server, stored in a cupboard just like most people have a central heating boiler these days. For the recent future though a PowerMac 970 will have to do. What I see is a main server and maybe a few other regular computers in the house hold, depending on a familys needs (gamers and people that do editing or intesive work will need a regular computer in their room/study for example). Then the rest of the computers in the house that are just used for light work could be thin client tablets or desktops. So if say little sister or the wife/girl friend whatever just web surf's and chats with friends then they could tap into the main computer(s) by remote graphical log in and using it's resources, with limited ram/hard disc and embedded processor for caching data etc. This means that the thin client desktops can take up less room and thus look nicer in the home and you can move around the home with a tablet version. So if you are busy at work in the home office and then the match comes on, you can just pick up the tablet and watch the footbal on the sofa while continuing where you left off cause the tablet can access all the study computers resources and what was on it's screen aty the tme (your work), meanwhile of course someone in the other room is accessing the same computer but logged in as another user and doing their own thing.

Whats even more intresting is thats just a basic idea of the concept that possible with WiFi technology, what happens if you add Apple inovation...there are many other possiblities.....co-operative working between different people n the same data, usefull fror team meetings and people that work together (ok thats more of a business one), mobile phones with an apple thin client that when come into range of the host computer(s) via rendezvous and bluetooth or WiFi can access the broadband connection and resources of the server and also change to a landline phone (well an internet landline phone), and acts like a cordless phone or something. Then there are other appliences that could use this and rendezvous, like the hifi that can log into the host and use the person logged in's play lists or be logged in as its own user so it can run whatever tasks it may need such as getting cd information, info about radio shows etc from the web. Then Tv's in the living room could act as a thin client so that you can surf the web, work on documents etc from the tv using the servers power (no need for an ugly dell/HP media edition box next to the tv - the thin client could be built into say new sony and philips tv's or as a hifi seperates shaped box that sits in your stack and also acts as a tivo). I'm sure there are many other possibilites. Guess I'm dreaming a bit much though.
 
I like the concept of having a 'house server', but I have one problem with it. When I'm not at home, I don't want to have any electronic equipment running. Aside from being a potential fire hazard (sp?) I think it's just a waste of electricity. :D

The great thing about my iMac is it's near instant-on power save mode. That makes it much more useable than first having to boot a computer. So that's why I'd like the concurrent session feature.
iMac sleeping, press mouse, log into your own account and voila!

So having a house server wouldn't speed up that process, unless we have a really fast booting dumb terminal.
 
Re: Re: Panther $$$

Originally posted by simX
Whoever said that Apple would adopt a one free, one pay pricing scheme? 10.1 was only free because 10.0 was admittedly a beta quality product. 10.1 was a perfectly acceptable "1.0" product, which is why Jaguar was a pay-for upgrade, and why Panther will likely also be a paid upgrade.
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Although they have never said that this is the case there has been a history of it:

Mac OS 8 - paid
Mac OS 8.1 - free
Mac OS 8.5 - paid
Mac OS 8.6 - free
Mac OS 9 - paid
Mac OS 9.x - free
Mac OS X Public Beta - paid (but essentially free since you got your money back from the discount on the full version)
Mac OS X 10 - paid
Mac OS X 10.1 - free
Mac OS X 10.2 - paid

Ignoring the version number hint which all changed with X it has tended to be that we pay for major upgrades whilst the minor ones are free.

The exceptions to this are 8.1 and 10.1. Both included major new features and were free. For those that can't remember 8.1 introduced a whole new file system HFS+.

The reasons that these two remained free is open to interpretation and debate. But there is a pattern, one paid, one free, that has spanned over 5 years.

That said the OS update model has changed, now we get a lot more incremental updates, mainly bug fixes for free that might mean that we pay for every big cat upgrade.

Senjaz
 
Originally posted by Kamu-San
I like the concept of having a 'house server', but I have one problem with it. When I'm not at home, I don't want to have any electronic equipment running. Aside from being a potential fire hazard (sp?) I think it's just a waste of electricity. :D

The great thing about my iMac is it's near instant-on power save mode. That makes it much more useable than first having to boot a computer. So that's why I'd like the concurrent session feature.
iMac sleeping, press mouse, log into your own account and voila!

So having a house server wouldn't speed up that process, unless we have a really fast booting dumb terminal.
Click to expand...

They are good points, I usually switch everything off too, except for my computer now as its running folding@home. An idea would be to have a schedule in iCal for things like maintenance that the system can use so that between certain hours the computer goes into a deep sleep mode or switches it's self off and then on, or a system where the server switches it's self on\wakes up when a thin clien or another computer connects to it and when all users are logged out it shuts down. Yeah to work the thin clients would need fast booting times. My old Psion PDA (i think these were the first or one of the first pda's) switches on instantly just like mobile phones, and I guess modern pda's are the same so they would have to have the same instant on capabilities (via system data being held in some form of memory or however you do it).
 
Actually, that would be a good idea. Using a Tungsten or something which connects to your house server through Wifi (sorry, Airport :D ) or Bluetooth.

A 12"PB would do too :p

The most important things for an 'always on' server for me would be:
- No fire hazard
- Absolutely silent

I used to use my old PC running Linux as firewall/router/server, but the thing is so noisy, that I really don't want to run it all the time. Now I have this small box, which is a firewall/router and it is completely silent. No moving parts at all.

So this house server should have/do the following:
- be completely silent
- no fire hazard
- firewall/router
- Airport base station
- Central email cache?
- Scheduled downloads

Then when you get home, you could connect with your Palm/P800/PB12/dumb terminal and instantly check your mail etc.

Not really useful I'm afraid, but nicely geeky :D
 
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