multiuser GRASS

Tim Martin writes:

I recall some discussion last fall about whether GRASS can be
used safely by more than one user at once, via Xterminals. One
limitation discussed then was the problem of sharing xmonitors.
But I think there were other concerns, about database integrity,
etc. Now that v4.1 is happily in place, I ask the question again:

  In principle, can GRASS be used as a multiuser X client?
  In practice, what precautions / changes must I take / make?

I'd be interested in any and all experiences people have had with
having more than one person use GRASS simultaneously on a single
computer. And I'd really like to hear what the programmers have
to say about whether GRASS is or isn't designed to be a multiuser
package.

At our site we have two copies of Grass (one 4.0 the other 4.1), and
both are regularly used by up to four users. I don't know how Grass
will hold with more users than that, but I'd say it probably depends
on the machine you're running Grass on, and the OS, rather than on
Grass itself. Multiple users have to worry about one thing only, and
that is setting the correct DISPLAY so that their Grass monitor
doesn't appear on somebody else's screen...There are no problems
with multiple use of a single mapbase, as long as you stick to the
LOCATION/MAPSET structure.

----\_\_\_--\_----\_------\_-------------------- P. Martijn van Leusen --------
     \_ \_ \_\_\_\_ \_ Dept of Pre- and Protohistoric Archaeology
      \_\_\_ \_ \_ \_ \_ University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
       \_ \_ \_ \_\_ \_ martijn@scanner.frw.uva.nl
--------\_------\_----\_--\_--\_\_\_\_-----------------------------------------

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We used G-40 by four clients too... one on the TEK console, two on Xterminals
of TEK and another used Xwin on SGI display... all controlled by TEK-88/34.
Of course, performance will be reduced compared to a single user.
Problems arised when two users were sharing one display for output only. It's
obviously the problem of color table overwriting...

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Frank Hoffmann, DD [This message is printed on
                                                     100 % recycled electrons]

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