PotatoHead's Journal: Why Apple should be doing multi-user GUI displays.

A comment pointed out how handy remote display capability, at the application level is. I agreed and wrote this. (Stashed it here for easy finding later.)

And I don't mean remote desktops. (VNC, RDP...) Don't get me wrong, those are nice and all, but nothing compared to remote display.

The X window system is the only *multiuser* GUI out there. The Mac is an interesting hybrid in that it features a nice multi-user kernel with a single user GUI bolted on. Being able to remote that would bring a lot of power to the already fine Apple experience.

Because Apple and Microsoft didn't create multi-user GUI environments, a very high percentage of the computer using population has exactly NO IDEA WHAT MULTI-USER COMPUTING REALLY IS ALL ABOUT.

That's too bad because they would benefit from it.

Honestly, the multi-user X window system and virtual desktops/workspaces/whatever, are the two features that keep me using Linux/UNIX in general. Once you understand what it means to send an application to a particular display, it's really limiting to not have the ability to do so.

The single-user GUI environments also sharply limit the types of group computing possible. Single user GUI systems are all client-server or web-services kinds of systems. This means the software must reside directly on the computer that serves the needs of the user currently using it.

For a single person using their computer, or maybe somebody running a portable one, this makes perfect sense and I'm not bashing it.

However, the potential benefits of workgroup computing are sharply limited by these single-user GUI environments. Just look at all the kludges, we have Novell ZenWorks, install scripts, and other junk all designed to move the increasingly complex software environment from one machine to another as users move.

It's all pretty stupid actually.

In an X window environment, the applications reside where ever they make the best sense and the users run them, where they live, and simply request the application display I/O come from the machine they are currently using.

This has a number of very significant advantages:

- Sharing powerful machines. Does every user have to have the super box? No. With the X window system, everyone who needs to run something on a powerful box can simply do so, from the machine they are running.

- Sharing expensive applications. Look at MCAD, or analysis, or simulation applications. These things are very expensive and are often complex to administer. Making a package like this available to a group of users is a lot harder than it needs to be, when you don't have the X window system working for you. The application needs to be loaded on each machine, then complex and error prone floating licensing schemes regulate the use of the software.

In an X window environment, any user that wants to run the application simply does so by running the one copy on the computer it is loaded on. When they get the data they need, they put it on the network where they have more local access to it and move on. This has licensing implications also. Many companies charge more for floating licenses because they know workgroups need that capability. The X window system mitigates this cost in almost every case.

- Data Management. In a client/server environment, a user must have a copy of the data on their machine in order to manupulate it. However an X window capable application can isolate the user from the data in powerful ways, mostly for free because of the way the UNIX and X window systems work together.

Imagine a data pool located on machine A, data manupulation application on machine B and user running on machine C.

When the user wants to do something with the data, in the data pool on machine A, they run the application on Machine B, remoting the display to their machine C, while the application then manupuates the data on Machine A.

In this case, the user has no direct access to the data in question. Possible actions and even copying of the data can be made as easy, structured, and or difficult as necessary to meet the design parameters. (Render text as bitmaps, for example to allow only screen captures.)

Anyway, I could go on and on, but I think my point is clear.

Most of the computing population has no idea just how powerful of a gift the X window environment is and a lot of them really should.

Love the Apple, plan on getting one, pissed as hell they decided to go with a single-user GUI. If the multi-user capability of the X window system would have gotten the Apple treatment, we all would have been better off.

Better still, Microsoft would have had one hell of a time playing catch up to that!

(Thinking this might make a nice essay in the near future... copies to Journal for viewing later.)

Sounds like a throwback

[Hi_2k]

... to mainframe days. Which is fine, but some might not like it. I think the reason we moved to "Personal" computers was based upon a lot of factors that have gotten smaller: Broadband internet can transport more data, and local co-processors can handle large amounts of work that would have previously had to be done by the mainframe. Have the window manager run on the local machine, and everything else run foreign. This could reduce the need for administration while increasing security. Bob knows that few

Interesting idea about the window manager...

[PotatoHead]

I agree with you, for the most part, about personal computers being personal. (local)

You are spot on regarding the major factors contributing to the personal computer. Today they are reduced.

I simply don't see the reason for taking the choice off the table. If we did more to support multi-user GUI environments, like X, the choice would be there for those that want to take advantage of it.

I like local computing just like everybody else. However, having setup a nice multi-user CAD environment, I must s