Q: starting second graphical interface at boot?

[Felix Miata]

On 2013-11-05 13:13 (GMT-0700) D. R. Evans composed:

>> Maybe no answer because most people who want to run a second X instance don't
>> use a login manager to do it. Instead, they login on a vtty, then:

>> 	startx -- :1

> At least on my system, that results in a second instance of KDE, which creates
> horrible conflicts and is basically unusable. I'm not sure how anyone would
> avoid said conflicts;

Login as any user other than the one logged into from the login manager.

>  but in any case I have no desire to run a second
> instance of KDE (indeed, I can't imagine why one would want to do so, but
> since you say that that's what people want to do then there must be a good
> reason).

Linux distros are multiuser operating systems.

One reason for a second instance is for web page testing at different screen 
resolutions. Each X instance can be differently configured even though using 
only one display.

An alternate user might want an artificial DPI configured, which has an 
overall zoom/unzoom effect. That cannot be done via switchuser.

> Rather, I explicitly want to be able to choose from a number of different
> desktop environments on the second graphical terminal, which is why I need the
> window manager.

The WM to use can be specified on cmdline starting session.

>> to start one on tty9. In well over 10 years using KDE, I don't recall ever
>> seeing instructions how to get a second KDM instance configured or started.

> By my understanding (which may well be faulty), Kubuntu doesn't use kdm; so
> this would not, by definition, be a second KDM instance.

Maybe it has switched to lightdm for new installations, which I have yet to 
install anywhere. I have only been doing upgrades of Kubuntu for a while, no 
fresh installs for over a year. I use KDM 99.9%/KDE 99.97% of the time on all 
installations on my own systems.
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