[X4U] What keeps going when switching Users

[David Ledger]

At 18:55 -0500 14/1/09, Mark Des Cotes wrote:
>I have four Users set up on my G5 iMac (10.4.11) with Fast User 
>Switching turned on. I'm curious as to what tasks keep working when 
>the User is switched. If I'm burning a DVD can my wife switch to her 
>account to check her e-mail? If there's an upload or download in 
>progress will switching accounts interrupt it? When my son is 
>playing World of Warcraft can I switch to my account to check 
>something without him having to log out of the game?
>
>I haven't taken the time to experiment with this but I was wondering 
>if any of you listers knew the answer?

Unix is a multi-user system. It can handle quite a large number of 
users logged in at once. It's just the GUI that's limited to one at a 
time, so anything that will continue when hidden or in a different 
'Space' (Spaced-out? :-) ) should continue when someone else is using 
the GUI.

Each process takes CPU time and memory, so there will be a practical 
limit to what you can do, especially something time critical like 
burning a DVD.

David


-- 
David Ledger - Freelance Unix Sysadmin in the UK.
HP-UX specialist of hpUG technical user group (www.hpug.org.uk)
david.ledger at ivdcs.co.uk
www.ivdcs.co.uk