[GRLUG] multiple login on Mac

[Bob Kline]

Re single use and display, the original
notion of multiple users was that each
user would have an ASCII terminal, of,
say, the adm3 ilk.  Displays of the kind
common today did not exist.  This
somewhat explains the back and forth
on central servers and, later, things like
workstations, which were expensive early
examples of today's PC with a fab display.
With workstations the idea was central
backup - the servers were usually no
more powerful than the workstations hanging
off them.  And of course DEC had multi-user
systems 35 years ago too.

I suspect today's balance of user hardware
versus central server is tipped totally in
the direction of the user.  It's simple
economics.  in general, one uses the central
server for backup, and as a repository for
programs to be downloaded and used on a
client.  25 to 30 users on the typical server
today would probably eat it alive.

"This is a bit of an overgeneralization, but generally true."

I'll repeat that Unix was multi-user from
the beginning.  It's essentially part of the
process approach.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multix

Multix was a precursor which never gelled,
but it did generate a lot of the concepts of
a multi-user system.  Thompson and Ritchie
then went off and did it right.

As for Mac OS 11, I suppose one could look and
see whether the classic multi-user support software
is still somewhere - e.g., adduser, deluser,
etc. The things in /usr/sbin on Ubuntu 11.10.
If it's been stripped out for some
reason, it's possibly just  to discourage use, or
to sell you another package which puts it back.
It's all been done before.

    -- Bob


On Sat, Jan 7, 2012 at 1:35 PM, Adam Tauno Williams
<awilliam at whitemice.org>wrote:

> On Sat, 2012-01-07 at 10:19 -0500, Eric Beversluis wrote:
> > As I recall, *nix systems are supposed to be able to support multiple
> > logins.
>
> This is a bit of an overgeneralization, but generally true.  Android,
> for example, is a *nix based system.... that uses the *nix 'user
> container' concept in entirely different ways [and is almost inherently
> non-multi-user].
>
> > I thought this meant multiple users would get their own session.
>
> No doubt they can; and I've ssh'd into a Mac in the past, so it works.
> But what you mean by "session" matters.  This may have more to do with
> their display-infrastructure/desktop-environment than if it is, or is
> not, *nix.  Mac's entire display-infrastructure is quite a radically
> different beast than the quasi-traditional X-server one used on
> LINUX/UNIX.
>
> > So I'm wondering if anyone knows if this can be done on Mac and if so,
> > how.
>
> I have no technical answer;  but from limited experience and "gut"
> premonitions I'd put my chips in the "no" column.  Their DE feels
> tightly coupled to the display-system.  A Mac may just host one-and-only
> one instance of the DE [think Mac-LTSP.... I can't picture how that
> would be possible given my understanding of Mac OS/X].  Don't quote me
> on it, but that's my guess.  An actual technical answer would be
> interesting.
>
> > I can get remote access/remote management from my Linux box to my wife's
> > Mac, but it puts me into the same session as she's in, even tho I'm
> > logged in as myself. Is there some way to do remote desktop to her Mac
> > and get a second different session for myself?
>
> Sure I can remote a Windows XP box via RDP;  but I can't get my own
> session.  And XP [an NT derivative] is unquestionably a technologically
> mutli-user system.  But the DE has profoundly single-user concepts.  You
> can slather single-user-ness on top of a multi-user system;  that
> certainly makes some things simpler for certain purposes.
>
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