multiuser problem

[Linux1]

i have the netbook-launcher set up launch from session i have 2 users setup , when i switch user's i end up with X running 2 netbook-launcher process at the same time .

[Linux1 (davehomer)]

hmm this could be a a duplicate of Bug #241887

[Neil J. Patel (njpatel)]

I don't see the problem: Both users would be using UNR, and therefore there would be two launchers running. When you log out from one of the users, there will be only one launcher. Or are you experiencing the issue at #241887?

[Alistair (alistairhastings)]

I'm not seeing 241887, but two instances of Remix don't run concurrently (desktop icons are rendered poorly and performance is poor).

Reproduce:
Log-in as user1
Switch to user2 (user switch, not log-out/log-in)

I don't see a way to disable the user switching option in the Remix "Quit" dialog. I do have switching disabled from the locked-screen sign-in, but that setting isn't honored by Remix.

[Paul Larson (pwlars)]

I don't think the performance hit is too big of a surprise since you are running a lot more on a system (netbook) that was really only designed for single-user instances. As for the poor rendering of the icons, could you try taking a screenshot while running on the latest karmic image to show what you mean exactly?

[Michael Reiger (mighyflea)]

I seem to have the same problem as Alistair, so I think it is a general problem.

My system is a Dell Mini 10v running Ubuntu netbook remix 9.04, with -upgrades and -proposed and -backports repositories enabled.

I have two users, one is admin, the other is not.

Whichever user I log in first gets normal performance.
When I switch to the other user without logging out, the netbook launcher for that second user responds very sluggish so long as it has the focus. If you switch the focus away (for example by starting an application), the system becomes responsive again after a minute or two. If you switch back to the launcher, it is slow again.
When you switch back to the first user, the performance is OK again after a delay of a minute or so. (The second netbook launcher does not have focus then, of course - there might be a pattern there...)

When you open a terminal from the slow netbook launcher and start top, you see the netbook launcher using 100% CPU (or nearly 100%). After a minute or two, this changes and the system is mostly idle again. I assume this is because you switched focus away from the netbook launcher.

I checked /var/log/messages and /var/log/syslog, also both Xorg logs, without seeing anything obvious. But then I do not really know what to look for.

This bug does affect the way I would like to use my computer:
I like to have a second user for test purposes, and it is easier to switch back and forth than to have to logout and login every time, and you do not lose your open applications that way.

Also when I let someone else use the computer for a little while I could just open another session and be able to return to my own session afterwards. (Or switch back and forth with that person as needed.)

The hardware can certainly handle two open sessions at the same time; it does have 1Gbyte RAM after all, and my ancient desktop computer can handle two full-blown GNOME sessions with just as much (or little... ;-) memory.

[Paul Larson (pwlars)]

If someone who is experiencing this bug could please reproduce on the latest development version (karmic) and post screenshots of the poor icon rendering previously mentioned earlier, that would be helpful. Thanks!

[Michael Reiger (mighyflea)]

I tried to reproduce the bug with the latest Karmic beta release,
downloaded on Tuesday.

I booted from the Karmic beta netbook remix ISO from USB; created two
new users test1 and test2.
Since I could not switch to a different user from the default session
I logged out of that session and logged in with user test1.
I switches to user test2 with the righthand applet, and everything
behaved normal, without delays, CPU-hogging or slow rendering.

So it appears to me that the bug is fixed in Karmic beta.

I do not know what Alistair meant with poor rendering of Icons; I
never noticed any coursely und incompletely rendered Icons. I however
he meant slow rendering of the mouse-over and startup animations - I
did experience thos in Jaunty and they are gone with the beta.

I'd be happy to provide more details on this later, if needed, as long
as tests can be done with the ISO image. My own performance might be
kind of slow ;-), it might take me a couple of days until I get around
to trying things.

[Omer Akram (om26er)]

marking fix released as per previous comment and due the face there has been no reply from the original reporter. Thanx