Today is the kickoff of coding work for Google SoC 2010 projects. We’re very excited about the Google funded project to refine USB multiseat on Linux, with the winning proposal from Lucas Nascimento Ferreira at the Federal University of Parana in Brazil. In addition to providing mentoring, Plugable is also providing donated hardware for this […]
On Windows and Mac, if you plug in a monitor with a higher resolution than your adapter supports, the driver will automatically fall back to the best common mode between the two. Linux hasn’t had that support — it would try to set the highest mode the monitor is capable of, often resulting in a […]
Plugable is offering mentoring and donated hardware for USB graphics projects that are funded as part of Google Summer of Code 2010. Plugable is working through X.Org as a sponsoring organization. The main focus is USB multiseat, and the details are on the xorg wiki for SoC 2010 With all the pieces that are just […]
xorg-server 1.8.0 has been released. There will still be some bugs and issues to resolve — but this release has most of the features, specifically related to input handling and udev-based dynamic configuration, of a more solid USB multiseat solution. In short: udev rules, which already can detect a grouping of USB devices that constitute […]
X.Org has announced RC2 of the 1.8 server release for Linux and other *nix operating systems. 1.8 contains several new features and configuration capabilities that will form the foundation of future USB multiseat work. In effect, USB multiseat has been waiting for this work to stabilize and get into the distros (of which Fedora 13 […]
Here’s how to add audio support on top of the previous instructions for getting USB multiseat running on Linux, with a Plugable UD-160-A type device. Add the following line to the bottom of the /lib/udev/rules.d/50-usbseat.rules file created per the previous instructions. KERNEL==”control*”, SUBSYSTEM==”sound”, SUBSYSTEMS==”usb”, PROGRAM=”/bin/cat /sys/%p/../../../../../devnum”, SYMLINK+=”usbseat/%c/sound” Then create a new /etc/X11/Xsession.d/50usbseat file which will […]
Following on the announcement of Windows Multipoint Server 2010, HP has announced their first product to connect with it: The HP MultiSeat thin client T100. It’s a DisplayLink-based device with VGA, PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports, and audio. It’s a focused competitor to the product that Plugable sells here, and they do a great job […]
Soon, we’ll be able to plug inexpensive zero-state USB docks/terminals into new Linux systems, and a new graphical login will pop up in a completely plug and play fashion. Many users can then simultaneously share any single Linux PC. This is great for education, libraries, internet cafes, etc — anywhere where you have clusters of […]
Microsoft has announced their Windows solution that’s similar to Linux multiseat: Windows Server Multipoint 2010. Architecturally, it’s actually similar to running several VNC clients in loopback mode on the same Linux server. See Microsoft’s “Unlimited Potential” blog for more information from Microsoft. “Unlimited” is over the top, but there’s certainly unfulfilled potential for multiseat (my […]
The video of the talk mentioned in this previous post, is now online (recently moved from the Linux Foundation site, to youtube in 4 parts). Covering: The potential of USB multiseat Some background and earlier work Live demo of USB multiseat with three Plugable devices Walkthrough of the multiseat scripts for Ubuntu 9.04 (available here) […]
