How do you create multiple graphical sessions?

1

Hi all,

OK, I know, I’m going OT, so feel free to move my reply where it fits at its best.

I see here that Nvidia users cannot set monitors as usual and that the team has introduced wdisplays; I also see that on qemu too, the standard monitor control isn’t working anymore.
But I didn’t know, until last week, that wayland is so different from X11.
Last week I was taking a 2 hrs speech, a sort of lesson, about linux and other OS (mainly linux vs windows vs macos) in a jail not so far from my homeplace; is a thing that we do once a year for some months and convicts appreciate it; this time my speech subject was Linux and close to the end of my presentation, I started talking about multiuser and multiple sessions in linux, windows and macos.
Since a simple slide wasn’t so right to explain multiple simultaneous graphical sessipons, I started a qemu vm to show convicts what “only linux can do”. Unfortunately I ran my last 26.04 custom iso and … when I tried to start a second graphical session, it painfully failed.
I’ve immediately switched to Mint 22.2 and performed my "three-simultaneìous-graphical-sessions-at-once” task but then, coming back to home, I started thinking about that.

OK, I understand: is security, as snaps are security, as sandbox is security (even as firefox blocking deb download or gemini refusing to talk about deep system modifications is security). But, I’m asking myself (and you), why Canonoical is pushing security in this way, as users are a bunch of incompetents? Why Canonical is (sorry for this ugly new word) apple-izing an OS that was born for people who love a bit of freedom more than MacOS or Windows?
OK, there’s a lot of beginners too but, from my experience, beginners never need their OS disallow them doing this or doing that; more, beginners never think about doing this or doing that, so why?

I’ll give a try to resolute, of course: I came to Ubuntu in 2009 after a whole morning spent in fighting against Debian for starting a wifi card on a netbook and I love a lot of things in Ubuntu: doing systems engineering is a job or an hobby and it must not become a torture.
But wayland … please!

I confess I tried (successfully) to go on Mint 22.3 with Budgie: needs a bit more of fine tuning but it works and it’s nice as on native Ubuntu.
But why Canonical is trying to obligate me migrating to Mint (and, maybe later, coming back to Debian)?

Thanks for your patience,

Sil

26.04 wayland testing - are you brave enough?
2

I don’t understand the Canonical references.

I think you are referring to starting multiple desktops?

If you can say what you did previously then hopefully everyone can understand further :slight_smile:

3

Thanks for the question — let me clarify, because I wasn’t referring to Budgie itself.

What I meant is that on Ubuntu 26.04, which now defaults to Wayland, I can no longer start multiple graphical sessions from different TTYs (something that was trivial on X11). During a demonstration I tried to start a second graphical session inside a QEMU VM and it failed with Wayland, while it still works fine on Mint (which uses X11 by default).

So my comments about Canonical were not about Budgie at all, but about Ubuntu’s shift to Wayland and the increasing security/sandboxing approach that prevents workflows which used to be possible on X11.

My question was simply: is this limitation expected on Wayland, and is there any supported way to start multiple graphical sessions manually (like we used to do with startx)?

Sil

4

Not really something I have ever tried - so thanks for enlightening me. Must try myself.

Doesn’t switching to a TTY and then running something like

dbus-run-session startbudgielabwc

start another instance of budgie (26.04 only)? Might have to export “Budgie” as a display session variable first (can’t remember off the top of my head what the variable is)

5

Thanks — I tried exactly that, using:

export XDG_SESSION_TYPE=wayland
exec dbus-run-session startbudgielabwc

as a script in /usr/local/bin

What happens is interesting: the LabWC+Budgie session does start, but only as long as it is the only graphical session running on the system.

If I already have one Wayland session active (for example user lavender on TTY7), launching a second one on another TTY (user melantho on TTY5) results in:

  • black screen with a movable cursor and only right‑click menus,
  • the original session on TTY7 dying immediately,
  • LightDM unable to start a new session afterwards until I fully reset the compositor state.

This matches what I’ve now understood about Wayland’s design:
only one compositor can own DRM/KMS at a time, so multiple simultaneous graphical sessions (which were trivial on X11) are no longer possible.

So the behaviour I saw is not a Budgie issue — it’s simply Wayland’s limitation.

And… if I’ll eventually be forced to migrate to Mint+Budgie for my multi‑session demos, would I still be welcome here anyway? :slight_smile:

6

this is under nvidia? Thats a limitation of how nvidia does things, not wayland per se.

I think running two of the same session type is probably not a good idea - but certainly should (lets say on intel) be able to run gnome-shell on one and budgie on another since they are different wayland compositors.

7

Hi Sil !

You can also continue to use 24.04 for a while until the transition to Wayland is complete.
Some applications, such as Brave, are not fully compatible.
And I tried Budgie on Ubuntu or Zorin… boo.

8

no, is an Intel:

Intel Corporation CometLake-S GT2 [UHD Graphics 630] (rev 05)

And I agree on not being a good idea running two same-type sessions, just I did it, as I told, during my speech to convicts, to show how powerful is Linux and … surprise!
Then starting Mint+Budgie, with startx from tty5 and 6 and normally on tty7 I’ve been able to accomplish my goal.

And … what about being welcome on here if I’ll migrate to Mint+Budgie? :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

Sil

9

Hello jlb!

why boo? I don’t know Zorin but on Mint it works well, imho.

Sil

10

Basically general Budgie queries always welcome. Full Debian and Ubuntu budgie based support here on discourse is expected.

Specific issues about Mint - definitely no; incompatibilities - expect a shrug.

Remember our focus is 26.04 moving forward and 24.04 support ends in a years time.

So stuff like this topic - fascinating and always welcome. Learn something everyday.

11

Ok, I can understand: I’d do the same, at your place :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

I understand this too, but may I smile? :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

Sil

12

Because it’s an absurd setup: we lose the advantages of a GNOME distribution and those of Budgie on powerful configurations and we have the disadvantages of a GNOME distribution without the advantages of Ubuntu Budgie when it comes to somewhat limited configurations.

As with Ubuntu, for that matter : Ubuntu + Budgie < Ubuntu Budgie.