[Feature request] Multiple X servers on one graphics card?

[Dave Airlie]

> There once was a patch to allow one X server per graphics card
> output:
> http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=110388492307351
> http://people.freedesktop.org/~airlied/multiseat/
>
> However, this patch never made it to mainline
> and no longer applies cleanly.
>
>
> Now the question is:
>
> * Are there any plans or activities to port these patches
> to recent kernels? To include these patches or something similar
> in the official linux kernel any time soon?

Nothing in my plans, I did a proof of concept to show how someone
should do things, I'd sort of hoped some of the people who dedicate
time to fixing multiseat and cared about it would pick things up and
run with them, it really does need a proper ioctl or configfs
configuration interface since any static setup will invariable be
wrong for 50% of people, and any kernel commandline interface will
invariably be ugly and complex in order to solve the problem.

I could envisage some sort of configfs where you echo 5 > num_seats
then echo VGA-1 > seat1, etc.

Then you could just write some scripts per machine if you don't want
gdm/consolekit support.

>
> * How much work (and how complex/difficult) would it be to port
> these patches to the current linux kernel?
> Could that be assigned to a student?

As I said porting it isn't the problem, doing it correctly is the
problem. A decent student could probably pick it up and run with it,
it really depends on the person. I can provide some guidance but
they'd have to be fairly self-starting.

>
> * Is there anyone who is experienced in that area of the kernel
> and would implement that (and push it to the official kernel),
> perhaps with some financial support (how much would that cost)?

Not me, my interest in multi-seat has taken a diversion into fixing
something else, I might get back to it in a year or so.

Dave.