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I was hoping to have a 2 seat setup. One will be for my TV just going to run Boxee. The other is for my main Desktop.

I've been looking for a good guide to help me navigate this, I'd like to use ubuntu 10.10. I am assuming it's just a case of getting a box and two graphics adaptors as well as a usb mice and keyboard, and then another, which will be bluetooth for the TV.

I can't seem to find much documentation on this idea. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Also I am assuming that this is all possible with a standard ubuntu install, but with some additional configuration.

muru
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4 Answers4

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As far as I can tell, there's no (free) GUI-which-works-out-of-the-box solution for this. I guess what you have to do is to adapt your XOrg configuration file and tell it which monitor-keyboard-mouse combinations go together.

The best resource I can point you to is this AskSlashdot thread. You'll find plenty of links there. But beware: it looks like you should have some linux experience, especially with editing config files etc.

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Ubuntu 13.04 (Raring) and 13.10 (Saucy):

Ubuntu 13.10 (Saucy) switched to logind, which has much better multiseat support than ConsoleKit (the seat management software used in 13.04 (Raring) and older). Much of the work that went into switching to logind is actually present in Raring, so with some effort it's possible to use logind with Raring.

Despite switching to logind, certain key packages (notably lightdm and xserver-xorg-core) still have some issues with multiseat support. The ubuntu-multiseat team is actively working on uploading fixes to these issues to the ubuntu-multiseat PPA.

To set up multiseat on 13.04 (Raring) or 13.10 (Saucy), you can follow the instructions on the ubuntu-multiseat PPA page. The following is a summary of those instructions:

  1. Add some udev rules to assign devices (keyboards, mice, video cards, etc.) to seats. Details can be found on the PPA page and the systemd multiseat page.
  2. Edit /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf and tell LightDM about your seats.
  3. Update to the packages in the ubuntu-multiseat PPA.

Setting up multiseat correctly is currently very hard; hopefully this will get easier in future versions of Ubuntu.

Richard Hansen
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I built exactly this system (but with MythTV) using an older version of Ubuntu and provided detailed set up instructions in this doc page https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MythTV_Multiseat?action=recall&rev=1 The page was "removed" because it was deemed out of date and no longer relevant.

While the instructions were from when I last rebuilt the system for 8.10, I have upgraded this system through 10.04LTS which I'm presently using.

Note that my TV output uses the Hauppauge PVR-350's audio / video out. The PVR-350 is an analog TV capture card which has a HW encoder for video output (and has not been supported by Myth for the last several releases). To my knowledge, this device has the unique property that it can handle the audio output entirely separately from the normal Linux sound path. This makes the multi-seat simple once the video and HID aspects of X.org are addressed.

If you don't use the PVR-350, you just need to substitute the appropriate video card info for your TV output. I do not know how to handle the audio, however. I am actively trying to find a solution for the audio since my PVR-350 is failing and I need to reconfigure my system since I am about to lose my analog cable.

madrivereric
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A short update for Ubuntu 20.10 (or in general Ubuntu with systemd) which makes this very easy by following the instructions in the Debian Wiki. Note that you also don't really need additional graphic cards. Docking stations or USB devices which support video output already meet the requirements.

It boils down to the following procedure:

  1. List attached devices and look for video cards containing drm.

    loginctl seat-status seat0

  2. Create a new seat with the secondary video card. Make sure to add your device identifiers. The following are just my examples.

    loginctl attach seat1 /sys/devices/platform/evdi.0/drm/card0

  3. Restart the PC.

  4. Now you should already have two login screens. But the second one is missing keyboard and mouse input. So add these and then everything is set up.

    # Mouse
loginctl attach seat1 /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb1/1-2/1-2.2/1-2.2.3
# Keyboard
loginctl attach seat1 /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb1/1-2/1-2.2/1-2.2.1

P.S.: This post was written from seat1.

Michael come lately
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