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#1 2009-05-07 6:45 pm
- Funkey Monkey
- Il Maestro spettacolare
- From: On the podium.
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Run two users simultaneously? Possible?
My wife and I share our iMac at home. My account stays logged in 24/7, and she logs in and out with fast user switching. (Which means we're often both running at the same time.)
Right now, I'm typing this message on my Ubuntu laptop, while she's watching YouTube videos. I'd like to use the iMac, too.
Is there some way that my wife could be using her account, and I could use mine simultaneously, perhaps with VNC or Remote viewer?
I currently have a VNC server set up on the iMac, with a java interface so I can access it anywhere from the web. But it only displays the currently active account, even though the server is running on my account.
Is this something that OS X server could do, perhaps?
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#2 2009-05-07 9:00 pm
- sturner
- Royal High Poobah
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Re: Run two users simultaneously? Possible?
Buy a second iMac.
Sorry but I'm not aware of any Mac that can do what you want.
Anybody else out there have a clue?
I'm not dead yet.
There are 3 types of people, those who can count and those who can't.
"There are few things graven in stone, excepting your date of death."
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#3 2009-05-07 10:43 pm
- Mr. Happypants
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Re: Run two users simultaneously? Possible?
Wow, it's like you're a mirror image of my Wife & I! After struggling with the same dilemma for months...
I bought a 2nd MacBook at MicroCenter a few weeks ago since they were on sale. 
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#4 2009-05-08 11:59 am
- dv
- Negusa Negest
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- From: Minneapolis, MN
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Re: Run two users simultaneously? Possible?
Sorry Monkey. You're just now figuring out what my parents figured out when I hit high school. We were a four-person, four-computer family thereafter.
Of course, that was back before multiple users. We probably could have made do with 2-3 machines if they had OS X-style user accounts.
"Now commences the process of cutting off the head, which generally takes from an hour to an hour and a half by an expert workman with a sharp blade." -Reuben Delano, Wanderings and Adventures
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#5 2009-05-08 12:21 pm
- Funkey Monkey
- Il Maestro spettacolare
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- Registered: 2003-01-27
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Re: Run two users simultaneously? Possible?
But isn't this the what people keep talking about for corporate computing? Can't we run a server from one computer, and use the other as a "dummy" terminal? Hmm... it seems so simple, but it's also seemingly impossible.
After all, when I'm logged in already and we fast-user-switch to my wife's account, all my programs are still running in the background while she's using her account. The computer is already running two accounts at once. I just want to be able to see/interact with that one running in the background!
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#6 2009-05-08 1:30 pm
- mrreet2001
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Re: Run two users simultaneously? Possible?
it's not really "simple" ... you would need something like Microsoft terminal services (to my knowledge doesn't exist for hosting OSX) and a server os..
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#7 2009-05-08 1:31 pm
- dv
- Negusa Negest
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Re: Run two users simultaneously? Possible?
Funkey Monkey wrote:
But isn't this the what people keep talking about for corporate computing? Can't we run a server from one computer, and use the other as a "dummy" terminal? Hmm... it seems so simple, but it's also seemingly impossible.
After all, when I'm logged in already and we fast-user-switch to my wife's account, all my programs are still running in the background while she's using her account. The computer is already running two accounts at once. I just want to be able to see/interact with that one running in the background!
Not with OS X.
There's some programs that kludge that ability into Windows 2000 and/or XP.
And you could certainly log in with a "terminal" via ssh and run command line sessions on the host computer without disturbing the person using it. But that wouldn't do you a hell of a lot of good.
"Now commences the process of cutting off the head, which generally takes from an hour to an hour and a half by an expert workman with a sharp blade." -Reuben Delano, Wanderings and Adventures
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#8 2009-05-08 1:39 pm
- Funkey Monkey
- Il Maestro spettacolare
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- Registered: 2003-01-27
- Posts: 1467
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Re: Run two users simultaneously? Possible?
dv wrote:
And you could certainly log in with a "terminal" via ssh and run command line sessions on the host computer without disturbing the person using it. But that wouldn't do you a hell of a lot of good.
Yup - I do that all the time from work with my Linux laptop. And you're right, it doesn't do me a hell of a lot of good. 
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#9 2009-05-08 7:04 pm
Re: Run two users simultaneously? Possible?
mrreet2001 wrote:
it's not really "simple" ... you would need something like Microsoft terminal services (to my knowledge doesn't exist for hosting OSX) and a server os..
It's incredibly simple and it was par for the course long before personal computing.
But Mac OS X really isn't designed to do it.
.tsooJ
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#10 2009-05-08 7:42 pm
- Funkey Monkey
- Il Maestro spettacolare
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- Registered: 2003-01-27
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Re: Run two users simultaneously? Possible?
Aww sheesh -- you guys are a bunch of naysayers!
Where's that can-do, adventurous Apple spirit?
Maybe Linux can do it.... 
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#11 2009-05-08 11:40 pm
- dv
- Negusa Negest
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- From: Minneapolis, MN
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Re: Run two users simultaneously? Possible?
Funkey Monkey wrote:
Aww sheesh -- you guys are a bunch of naysayers!
Where's that can-do, adventurous Apple spirit?
Maybe Linux can do it....
Probably can.
"Now commences the process of cutting off the head, which generally takes from an hour to an hour and a half by an expert workman with a sharp blade." -Reuben Delano, Wanderings and Adventures
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