Alternative to x11/gnome3 ?

[Polytropon]

On Wed, 8 Aug 2018 23:11:56 +0700, Victor Sudakov wrote:
> 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.

This is what Gnome 2 on FreeBSD could definitely do. Is there
a chance to use Gnome 2 instead of Cinnamon or Mate (because
even they are Gnome 2 forks, they do _not_ seem to include
this specific functionality).



> > 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.

Have you checked Cinnamon, the other Gnome 2 fork?

I haven't tried it. Mate works sufficiently well (as a
Gnome 2 replacement that isn't the abomination of Gnome 3),
but it doesn't include the user switching functionality,
at least I've been unable to find it...




-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...