multiuser mode means

[sampathinturi]

hi everyone. i am new in using linux. can anyone make me understand what exactly MULTI USER in Linux and Unix means

[Smither]

Just means what it says - many users can log in at once.

[budman7]

For the purposes of a single person using a computer by itself, it would mean that you would log in as your regular user, and then you could open a terminal, log in as root with the "su" command, thus having multiple users logged onto the system.

But, originally, I believe it was intended for mainframes where several different people could log oto the same machine.

[cayalee]

yeah, it came about during the days when there was one "computer" and many "terminals", where many people would connect to the mainframe computer via the terminals, thus making it a "multi-user" system.

[benjamin20]

by terminal i assume you mean like a little station with a keyboard and screen, and many of these tied together on the mainframe.

i think it actually refers to the fact that the computer isn't just on, and you can use it. i think it is more about how there are multiple user files in the system. so fred logs in as fred, and joe logs in as joe. rather than something like dos where you don't log in you just boot up and use it. with multiple users it made it easier for there to be different terminals on the same mainframe.

the main reason for multi user systems was so that you could keep different peoples stuff separate and be able to set what time they were allowed on the computers. many times when i read about the old times it never really talked about multiple terminals, just that people could be restricted to what time they were allowed on.

[theNbomr]

I think the real reason was that computers were expensive and scarce. A system that allowed many people to share a single scarce resource made sense. Operating systems that catered to this situation evolved, along with filesystems that recognized the concept of multiple distinct users. Today, many peoples' view of Linux is as a Windows-for-Nerds system; primarily a single user workstation. However, there are many linux installations which treat the system as a central host which many people log into from remote terminals or workstations. It is not uncommon for these types of systems to run completely headless, with X servers running on the remote workstations, or where users operate entirely at a commandline via a SSH, telnet (gasp!), or rsh (double gasp!) login.

--- rod.

[Smither]

Is single user mode not root only as well? Generally you want to be in multiuser mode.

[theNbomr]

Yes, single user mode is root only. It is intended as a diagnostics & repair mode, so the system can be managed without concern about trampling the work of others, and restoring a broken system to production level functionality.
--- rod.