How to switch user while keep apps running in background without get killed?

[siberianhusky]

Is it called “keeping current session” on Linux?

Currently, It looks like I can only have one user logged in, otherwise wired things happens.

For example : black screen, keyboard not responding, KDE stucking at splash screen, apps running in Bottles get black screen.

Could we achieve similar or better experience than windows when switching users?

Why Manjaro/Linux choose to kill all apps by default when switching user or it’s a bug?

I haven’t try this yet.

[Aragorn]

@siberianhusky

Could we achieve similar or better experience than windows when switching users?

You must be joking, right?

UNIX was designed from the ground up as a multi-user operating system, while Microsoft Windows was designed as a graphical user interface with cooperative multitasking for an inherently single-user operating system, i.e. MS-DOS.

The concept of multi-user terminal servers didn’t even exist yet in Windows NT until Citrix modified the NT 4.0 kernel for their Citrix WinFrame product, and then Microsoft bought the rights to that kernel hack from them and sold it as Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server.

@siberianhusky

Why Manjaro/Linux choose to kill all apps by default

It doesn’t. Manjaro does not develop Plasma. We import the Plasma packages directly from Arch, and Arch itself builds those packages from the upstream source code, which is developed by kde.org.

@siberianhusky

I haven’t try this yet.

Maybe you should?

[siberianhusky]

@Aragorn

You must be joking, right?

I know It’s not a funny one . Learned a lot, thanks.

@Aragorn

Maybe you should?

Yes, indeed. Thanks.

It works for me, while the issue mentioned persists, but I know it’s not related to the OS. thanks for your clarification.

I was doing:

1. using ctrl + alt + F3 to switch to tty3 (when ctrl + alt + F1 pressed, these is only a flashing cursor, can’t input anything. Current user is on ctrl + alt + F2, tty2)
2. login the second user
3. start KDE plasma with startx -- :1

BTW, the speaker of my laptop looks get exclusively occupied by the second user. The first user could use it until I login it out.

[Aragorn]

@siberianhusky

using ctrl + alt + F3 to switch to tty3 (when ctrl + alt + F1 pressed, these is only a flashing cursor, can’t input anything. Current user is on ctrl + alt + F2, tty2)

Yes, this is due to how sddm works in combination with systemd. sddm will commonly claim either tty1 or tty2, so the first available free tty will be tty3.

@siberianhusky

start KDE plasma with startx -- :1

Note that this will start Plasma on X11. If you prefer Wayland, then you should use startplasma-wayland.

@siberianhusky

BTW, the speaker of my laptop looks get exclusively occupied by the second user. The first user could use it until I login it out.

Yes, but this is a limitation of the hardware. The local console is not multiplexed, and the audio hardware is therefore given ownership to the active user account logged in at the local console.

[xabbu]

@siberianhusky

BTW, the speaker of my laptop looks get exclusively occupied by the second user. The first user could use it until I login it out.

This is to be expected, since the pulseaudio or pipewire service is started as a user service for the first user that logs in. If you want to run it as a system service or allow other users to use a already started audio service you need to configure this.

[peterhass]

@siberianhusky

For example : black screen, keyboard not responding

Not 100% sure if it’s the same issue, but: Sometimes when I’m switching users (KDE Plasma start menu → leave → switch user → end up in sddm → enter credentials → enter) my screen goes black as well. I have to ‘search’ for the correct tty via ctrl + alt + f1/2/3/…). Kind of a weird behavior but besides that everything works fine related to having multiple users logged in at the same time.