How or what application could I use to allow 2 people with 2 keyboards and 2 mice control the same computer, on the same screen, so that we could work on the same program (vmware).
I have tried VNC and TeamViewer and Nomachine but those are 2 people controlling one mouse.
Would this be possible?
Thank you for reading this
-EXOpool
Welcome to the forum! 
Well, UNIX is a multi-user operating system architecture, and it has multiple ways of allowing multiple users to be logged in at the same time and to concurrently use the machine’s resources, or even to have a single user log in multiple times and run separate sessions — not a good idea with regard to graphical environments, but it does work quite well with character-mode terminals or virtual consoles.
However, what you are inquiring about is quite a different thing. You are effectively asking about two physical users logging into a single user account and a single graphical session, and then splitting the input (but not the output) between these two physical users.
On account of keyboard input, it won’t be too much of a problem to have two physical keyboards (with the same keyboard layout) connected at the same time, except that you cannot assign a separate keyboard focus. So you could use both keyboards, but their input would be sent to whatever the application is that has input focus.
The same is more or less true for the mice, but the problem here is that there’s only one mouse pointer, and whenever one person moves their mouse, the pointer will move accordingly.
In other words, the other person will not have their own dedicated mouse pointer, which would respond only to input from that one physical mouse. And if I understand you correctly, then that is exactly what you seek to achieve, am I correct?
It may be possible with a KVM switch of some kind, though this hardware is usually meant for the opposite of what you describe. That is; one keyboard, mouse and monitor to control several computers (depending on which is switched to).
I’m not sure this is what you want.
VNC, TeamViewer and NoMachine are remote access type applications designed to share your desktop with others, usually via Internet or LAN.
This doesn’t seem to suit your description, either.
TeamViewer is often recommended for simplicity when wishing to work collaboratively online; but, yes, there is usually just one mouse.
As you seem to want this happening in a VM, that possibly adds another level of complication. What is it that you’re trying to do? Do you expect these 2 keyboards and 2 mice to be working side by side, or via Internet?
I think the best you could achieve with the aforementioned software would be to take turns while working. AnyDesk is another similar software; I prefer RustDesk; but, I’m uncertain either of these will satisfy your needs, according to the description given.
Good luck.
Ubuntu had Multiseat. I don’t know if there’s something like this in Manjaro.
Multiseat requires separate monitors, and each user would be logged into their own private session. If I understand the OP correctly, then that is not what they would like to achieve.
I could have had better formatting sorry the VM is going to be run on the computer, we can both access the vm, modify it, all that jazz. But the multi user thing would be run it the base system not the vm.
I was tying to run the remote access applications as I thought they had a form of what I wanted but they don’t.
I could take turns, but that seemingly slows us both down, we are in a competition to secure a linux system as fast as possible (secure/find vulnerabilites)
Thank you
-EXOpool
Well, I could always be wrong, but I’ve got 25 years of experience at exclusively using GNU/Linux and a little bit of experience with proprietary UNIX versions from before that, but I do not believe that what you seek to accomplish would be technically possible. The system just wasn’t designed for that.
If on the other hand you would be using a multiseat setup with separate monitors, then that could indeed be done.
I think the ability to quickly communicate might be the best you can achieve using available software. Don’t underestimate the value of that even if you can’t do what you originally intended.
A multiseat configuration overview, for what its worth:
…so:
you are both users on one system - and are both trying to do something to it (secure it …)
Why would you then need or want to be the same user?
Two separate users on the one (same) system, both users having equal rights to do … whatever
would be totally fine.
No?
Why would you even want to use the same account?
ps:
anyway - I heard of tmux being a near perfect tool for collaborating that way
… just not in a “graphical session”
Sadly I do think you are right, while it would be cool to plug in a mouse and a new red cursor to appear, that would probably not be possible,
I might just set up a RPI that could ssh into the vm with x11 forwarding to emulate what I want-ish. Much better idea anyways then what I was thinking (<- not coping)
Thank you for helping, and thank you to anyone that did help,
-EXOpool
There was this project called Multi-Cursor Window manager: https://multicursor-wm.sourceforge.net/ With X11 there is an option to achieve a similar thing with multi cursors: Multi-pointer X - ArchWiki, X/MPX - Ubuntu Wiki
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