In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> you write: >Jameson Burt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > >> I seek to use one computer with two full X-windows users. >> This would be a cheap in time/money approach for my wife and I simultaneously >> using Linux. > >It might be worthwhile finding a cheap 386 or 486 with a good graphics >card. Install a minimum of programs on it, just the X server. If you >run xfs on your main computer, you won't even need the fonts. You >could do this with even a 200 MB hard disk, I think. > >You *will* need 2 network cards for this, but setting up two computers >on a network under Linux is easier than some single-computer stuff. X >is probably too slow over serial.
Two HUNDRED meg? I know from experience that all the necessary stuff can be fit on a single 1.44 MB floppy. This included a stripped-down kernel, libc, ash, S3 X server, and the necessary tools to establish a SLIP connection over a null modem cable. Unless you have less than 8Mb of RAM, you probably won't need a swap file/partition. I didn't use init, but wrote a small shell script to do its job instead. If you don't mind a small amount of lag, it even works acceptably fast over a 115.2kbps wire! However, if I was doing this for any other purpose than proof of concept, it would hardly be worth not paying 20 pounds each for a couple of cheap network cards. >It is easy to plug in two mice, dodgy to plug in two monitors, but >pretty much impossible to plug in two keyboards at the moment, IMO. Apparently GGI can handle two keyboards if you have both a PS/2 keyboard and a [whatever-the-other-sort's-called] keyboard plugged in at once. -- Charles Briscoe-Smith White pages entry, with PGP key: <URL:http://alethea.ukc.ac.uk/wp?95cpb4> PGP public keyprint: 74 68 AB 2E 1C 60 22 94 B8 21 2D 01 DE 66 13 E2 -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
