Multiple sessions under GDM/gnome

[r_avital]

Hi all,

running Ubuntu Jaunty (9.04) 64-bit under gnome, display manager is GDM, uname-a returns:

Linux mymachinename 2.6.28-17-generic #58-Ubuntu SMP Tue Dec 1 21:27:25 UTC 2009 x86_64 GNU/Linux

When I was running KDM there was a simple way in KDE to start as many as 6 alternate graphical KDE sessions. I'm trying to do the same thing in gnome running under GDM and having no luck. All I'm getting is a notification that the server is already running.

I've tried Ctrl+Alt+Fx, but this with F1 to F6 gets me a console login, with F7 gets me the current session (as expected), with F8 gets me a screen with some output and no prompt, with F9 to F 12 gets me a blank screen with blinking cursor.

I've read somewhere that GDM does not support multiple sessions "out of the box" - does anyone know if this is correct, and if so, what would "out of the box" mean?

Also found some info about editing /etc/gdm/gdm.conf-custom, and using the follwing in the server section:

[servers]
0=Standard device=/dev/tty5
1=Standard device=/dev/tty6
2=Standard device=/dev/tty7

I could adjust this to tty8, tty9 etc. all the way to tty12. However this looks like it would load a new gnome desktop on separate displays, whereas I only have one display. (again, this is feasible in KDM)

Would it be safe to assign them all to display 0?

Alternately, is there any other solution to this?

Thanks in advance

[Rubberman]

Well, if you can switch to kdm, you should be able to run gnome as well as kde desktops. It is possible, however, that gnome itself has problems running more than one session at a time for a single user.