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I seem to recall Ubuntu had a similar thing for PCs to drive multiple X sessions (a classroom's worth?) off a single PC: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Multi

I seem to recall Ubuntu had a similar thing for PCs to drive multiple X sessions (a classroom's worth?) off a single PC: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MultiseatX https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MultiseatX But it seems to have gone by the wayside as the upper limit is really the number of video outputs, and driving 30+ displays off one computer starts getting into custom setups that are going to be more expensive, even if the goal was just running 30 instances of Firefox on one computer. The wiki hasn't been updated in 6 years, so I assume it's not viable in modern Ubuntu?

Nightshaxx 6y ago
Not sure about Ubuntu's support for it, but they may have just decided to leave it for virtualization OSs specifically made for this purpose. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXOaCkbt4lI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXOaCkbt4lI
hawski 6y ago
I did this on Gentoo around 10 years ago. It was quite cumbersome, but it worked. Separate X sessions in time of xorg.conf. The problem was with sound, I didn't know how to divide it, also removable media and danger of shutting down computer when another session was still running. Today it would be probably easier.
numpad0 6y ago
It's not done often, as not many people must run 30 individual desktop sessions on a single server box at the end of the day. Procedures are more or less same for every Unix or GNU/Linux systems. You somehow get dozens of display outputs, give Xorg with necessary config as to where to output and what input to watch, and run it. Unix and Linux are a multi-user operating systems so there's no inherent problem with it. Windows can do the same using the feature called Terminal Service. macOS Server had the same kind of feature years ago. On GNU/Linux, DisplayLink(not to be confused with DisplayPort) USB graphics adapters should work for this, or virtual framebuffers using Xvfb can be used to connect over VNC or RDP. Or some sort of PCIe hub can be used to connect grapevine full of Quadros. Whatever. The practicality problem of it is user experience tends to be rather suboptimal due to collectively massive issues, from network overheads, hardware acceleration issues or lack of support for it, workloads of sysadmin to constantly fighting outages, cost of client console hardware that aren't supposed to be full standalone computers but virtually it, etc.
- csande17 6y ago
  The big issue with doing that sort of thing these days is that for the price of the specialized hardware you'd need, you can just buy mass-produced general-purpose computers.
  - mikestew 6y ago
    Hardware was what kept me from donning my Olde Guy hat and going on about how we used to have 20 serial terminals attached to a DigiBoard and a single System V machine, and by golly, we were glad to have it. It then occurred to me, "where am I going to find serial terminal hardware these days, and will it cost more than a WalMart laptop?"
alex_duf 6y ago
My class had that, but we were using remote session with dumb terminals, each terminal was wiped with the latest image at every boot.

Nightshaxx 6y ago

Not sure about Ubuntu's support for it, but they may have just decided to leave it for virtualization OSs specifically made for this purpose. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXOaCkbt4lI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXOaCkbt4lI

hawski 6y ago

I did this on Gentoo around 10 years ago. It was quite cumbersome, but it worked. Separate X sessions in time of xorg.conf. The problem was with sound, I didn't know how to divide it, also removable media and danger of shutting down computer when another session was still running. Today it would be probably easier.

numpad0 6y ago

It's not done often, as not many people must run 30 individual desktop sessions on a single server box at the end of the day. Procedures are more or less same for every Unix or GNU/Linux systems. You somehow get dozens of display outputs, give Xorg with necessary config as to where to output and what input to watch, and run it. Unix and Linux are a multi-user operating systems so there's no inherent problem with it. Windows can do the same using the feature called Terminal Service. macOS Server had the same kind of feature years ago. On GNU/Linux, DisplayLink(not to be confused with DisplayPort) USB graphics adapters should work for this, or virtual framebuffers using Xvfb can be used to connect over VNC or RDP. Or some sort of PCIe hub can be used to connect grapevine full of Quadros. Whatever. The practicality problem of it is user experience tends to be rather suboptimal due to collectively massive issues, from network overheads, hardware acceleration issues or lack of support for it, workloads of sysadmin to constantly fighting outages, cost of client console hardware that aren't supposed to be full standalone computers but virtually it, etc.

csande17 6y ago
The big issue with doing that sort of thing these days is that for the price of the specialized hardware you'd need, you can just buy mass-produced general-purpose computers.
- mikestew 6y ago
  Hardware was what kept me from donning my Olde Guy hat and going on about how we used to have 20 serial terminals attached to a DigiBoard and a single System V machine, and by golly, we were glad to have it. It then occurred to me, "where am I going to find serial terminal hardware these days, and will it cost more than a WalMart laptop?"

alex_duf 6y ago

My class had that, but we were using remote session with dumb terminals, each terminal was wiped with the latest image at every boot.