[Gllug] Multi-Head with multiple gdm setups?

[Tethys]

Benedikt Heinen writes:

>Has anyone here tried setting up a multi-head machine not to use both 
>displays in the same session, but rather dual-heading the entire machine 
>(i.e. hook up a separate USB keyboard and mouse and run two gdms/xdms)?
>
>Is that possible - and how much work is it?

Yes, it's possible. Yes, it's a lot of work. I looked into it a few years
ago. While things may have changed since then, the tricky bit is handling
input. Because keyboard/mouse events are handled by the X server, rather
than by a kernel device driver, one X server tends to try and steal events
from the other.

There were various proposed solutions to this. The most promising, evdev,
came out of the stillborn GGI project, and probably suffered as a result.
I believe it's since taken on a life of its own, but I haven't been keeping
up with the field in a while, so I don't know what the current state is.

In summary: yes, it's possible. But don't expect it to just work out of
the box. You'll probably need to hack the X server and/or the kernel.

Tet
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