Alternative to x11/gnome3 ?

[Victor Sudakov]

Steve O'Hara-Smith wrote:
> 
> > No, this is not the way it works, at least on Linux. I've researched
> > how it works on my son's Ubuntu. All programs of logged-in users
> > remain running, it's not done via storing program state, killing and
> > restoring them. In fact, every logged-in user has her own Xserver.
> > Only one Xserver at a time is "the current graphical console" and has
> > access to the video card, but they all are in the ps output.
> 
> 	Running multiple X servers is easy enough - I used to do it quite a
> lot using startx, you just have to give each one a different display
> number, as long as there's a spare virtual console X will pick one and use
> it. You switch between them with Ctrl-Alt-Fn as normal.

No, this is not the way it works on Linux. Linux users don't run
startx from a text session, nor do they switch between GUI sessions
with Ctrl-Alt-Fn.  They click "Switch user" and the graphical login
screen appears where you can get authenticated.

Moreove, x11/gnome3 works the same way on FreeBSD. My question is if
there is another desktop environment (not as bloated as gnome3) which
can switch users the same way.


> 	That doesn't secure the sessions though. 

Indeed.

> For that the user switcher
> has to lock the current session and switch to the selected locked session
> or create a new one - and of course something has to disable normal virtual
> console switching to prevent leaving unlocked sessions lying around.

Some black magic in x11/gnome3 does it. I would like it in Mate or
some other more lightweight DE.

-- 
Victor Sudakov,  VAS4-RIPE, VAS47-RIPN
AS43859