Multiseat problem

Question

Hello.
I use Gentoo linux along with Arch, and the problem I will describe below was observed on a Gentoo box. However, I believe that it is a general linux problem, and it may be interesting to arch linux users who try doing multiseat. The main reason I am asking my question here is that authors of a very nice article on multiseat seem to belong to arch linux community.
I bought a couple of sexy video cards - AMD 6850, and now I am trying to make them serve me a multiseat. I used manual at the wiki and tried various other configurations found on the net. I was able to get it working, modulo a couple of problems:
1. when I type something on a keyboard, small red bars appear on the left top corner of the 0th screen. As if these red bars are letters on some sort of a terminal that is active on background. See screenshot
It also spams in the system log
Nov 2 10:49:28 globalhost login[2675]: pam_unix(login:auth): check pass; user unknown
Nov 2 10:49:28 globalhost login[2675]: pam_unix(login:auth): authentication failure; logname=LOGIN uid=0 euid=0 tty=/dev/tty1 ruser= rhost=
Nov 2 10:49:30 globalhost login[2675]: FAILED LOGIN (1) on '/dev/tty1' FOR 'UNKNOWN', Authentication failure
Nov 2 10:49:30 globalhost login[2675]: pam_tally2(login:auth): pam_get_uid; user?
Nov 2 10:49:31 globalhost login[2675]: pam_unix(login:auth): check pass; user unknown
Nov 2 10:49:31 globalhost login[2675]: pam_unix(login:auth): authentication failure; logname=LOGIN uid=0 euid=0 tty=/dev/tty1 ruser= rhost=
Nov 2 10:49:34 globalhost login[2973]: pam_tally2(login:auth): pam_get_uid; no such user
Nov 2 10:49:35 globalhost login[2973]: pam_unix(login:auth): check pass; user unknown
Nov 2 10:49:35 globalhost login[2973]: pam_unix(login:auth): authentication failure; logname=LOGIN uid=0 euid=0 tty=/dev/tty1 ruser= rhost=
2. when I log out and then log back in, some applications wouldn't display anything, like firefox:
I'm quite bothered by these issues, I'm thinking of returning video cards for refund (while it isn't too late), and trying something like nvidia 550 Ti.
I would greatly appreciate any help.
P.S.: This thread almost repeats an analogous thread in gentoo forums. There I posted relevant config files and logs.
P.P.S.: Please-please-please don't close this thread. I use and very much appreciate Arch linux, if this counts.
Last edited by Khumarahn (2011-11-02 19:56:59)

Answer 1

scar wrote:
If your lightdm install is a bit older, this can be related to recent changes in lightdm.
See this:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=169552
In this case you can overwrite your /etc/lightdm.conf with /etc/lightdm.conf.pacnew, and re-configure it as you wish.
If this was not the case, sorry. (But the symptoms are quite familiar to me)
Thank you for your answer, that was part of the problem. Now I'm able to login but there's only one monitor working!
Before there were two seats and I wasn't able to login, now there's only one and I'm able to login.
Could it be a problem of the VGAs? Seems strange, I really think that I can't configure well lightdm, but if I want to install gdm it pulls all
gnome-shell, and I use xfce..
What a mess..