From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
Message-ID: <51b0ef71c372ee08703b4bd20017417c@proxima.alt.za>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] First-timer help
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2005 12:45:32 +0200
From: lucio@proxima.alt.za
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> Nevertheless, I must add that this is one reason why I haven't
> installed Plan9 on my systems at home - there are more people than
> computers here, and I can't lose all my context (of active windows,
> etc), when my wife needs to check her email, or my daughter wants to
> paint a picture....

I was thinking, when Russ suggested that the infrastructure for
changing ID without rebooting was a possibility, that we'd lose the
extreme reliability of the current approach.  That need not be true,
either, as the reboot option is unlikely to go away.

That said, a stand-alone Plan 9 device seems to need better
specification, I'm sure a CPU server is perfectly capable of sharing
its console to different users at different times.  But different
logins on different windows (as Martin seems to suggest) would be more
complicated.  I guess somebody ought to give the idea some careful
thought and suggest an implementation.  Specially where we actually
want the stand-alone device to be more of a workstation than a CPU
server, yet we need local authentication and device management.

++L