There are many solutions to enable multiple simultaneous users to access one single computer. Here's how you can create a similar setup using a simple application.
Most computers are efficient enough to multi-task two or more applications. But we don’t actually use these resources completely. Networking computers together to utilize the multi-user environment created the server and client solutions, and domains were put into action. But what does a domain actually do? They are just regular servers with multiple user accounts and the client are complete PCs which the user uses to log into the server. Here, on the user's end there needs to be a full fledged computer, and it is still not cost-effective. Novel Netware is a good example to reduce the cost of hardware involved in a multi-user environment. But the only cost that could be saved is that of the hard drive. you would still need a complete computer without a hard disk. The system boots using the Ethernet card's boot ROM.
Thin clients can be deployed in places where the cost up to 50 percent or more can be saved on hardware. The Thinclient involves a simple and basic hardware on the client end, which boots and makes use of the complete processing power and resources from the server's hardware. It is a small piece of electronics that connects the monitor, keyboard and mouse using the local area network via the Ethernet card. The Ncomputing solution is an example which utilizes the resources of the server (host computer) and runs multiple simultaneous users. These users connect to one single computer by connecting proprietary hardware to the computer called 'MuStations'.
In this workshop, we make use of simple software which does pretty much the same thing. All you would additionally need (for each terminal) is a USB keyboard, a USB mouse, a monitor and a PCI/PCIe graphics card. If you have built a fairly new desktop computer, check if your motherboard supports hybrid graphics. If it does, you would need to install an additional graphics card to have BeTwin running. If your motherboard does not support hybrid graphics, then you would need two graphics cards for this workshop. The onboard graphics card won't work because the moment you install a PCIe card, the onboard graphics gets disabled.
You can also use PCI VGA cards which have been outdated. Each graphics card would create an additional terminal. Depending on the number of PCI slots available on your motherboard, you can create that many terminals for your system. The best use for this setup is in small offices, homes and cybercafe.
Note: A single graphics card with two D-Sub/DVI headers will not work for this setup. You would require two physical cards. Those of you who already have two display cards and want to try out the software can do so with a single user account for a trial period of 30 days. Additional users will need a license at $100 (approx Rs 5,000) each.
A live edition of this very same utility is available for trial and it is based on a Ubuntu platform but can only be used for testing. You can download the ISO image of this version from ‘http://www.download25.com/userful-live-cd-download.html’.
