I am weighing the pros and cons of 3 primary architectural alternatives with Ubuntu Studio 14.04 as the host OS for a primary computer, and would appreciate the insights of those who have had experience using Ubuntu in multi-user, multi-purpose configurations. I've been running Ubuntu (and now Ubuntu Studio 14.04) at home for several years now, have some Java development and systems engineering experience, and consider myself a capable Linux beginner, not yet at the intermediate stage.
Needs:
1. Home automation runtime (OpenHab), including HD camera monitoring and video analytics on all the time, access to USB devices and future various peripherals
2. Home automation development (also OpenHab, somewhat heavy Eclipse environment)
3. Personal computer for me. My 2GB Latitude D630 is too weak to support the home automation runtime, development environment, and dozens of Firefox tabs, etc
4. Personal computer for teenage daughter. Her Dell Mini with Atom N450 is rather slow, though could possible act as a dumb terminal along with her 23" monitor.
5. Musical composition and multitrack audio studio (hence Ubuntu Studio, but this is not required for the complete system, I could use this only on my laptop)
6. No need for special gaming support
Assets;
- soon-to-arrive Zotac Zbox i7-4770T 16GB mini desktop with SSD intended to cover as much as the above as possible.
- Latitude D630 (not terribly long for this world) with a 23" monitor
- Dell Mini with Atom N450 (not powerful enough on its own to run a browser with many windows, Libre suite, etc) with a 23" monitor, keyboard, mouse
Alternatives:
A. Virtualbox with separate VMs for myself and my daughter. The Virtualbox instructions for accessing USB, audio, serial, etc seem straightforward, though as I'm currently using a USB ZWave controller and will be using audio (perhaps SPDIF), one-wire, and other hardware interfaces, I would like to know what hw peripheral experience others have had before going too far down that pike.
B. MultiSeatX approach (which is not straightforward for even regular Ubuntu much less Studio), or
C. 1 user local, 1 remote; Letting my daughter use the Zbox as her computer with me utilizing a remote logon (FreeNX, etc) to access the home automation runtime, development, personal use from the older laptop. I am assuming I can leave a desktop process running the OpenHab runtime on all the time, just reattaching to it via FreeNX when I want to make any adjustments.
D. KVM (update: thanks TheFu!): (I need to look into this more, though lack of video playback would preclude it's use for camera video playback)
Thoughts, cautions, suggestions, humour?
Needs:
1. Home automation runtime (OpenHab), including HD camera monitoring and video analytics on all the time, access to USB devices and future various peripherals
2. Home automation development (also OpenHab, somewhat heavy Eclipse environment)
3. Personal computer for me. My 2GB Latitude D630 is too weak to support the home automation runtime, development environment, and dozens of Firefox tabs, etc
4. Personal computer for teenage daughter. Her Dell Mini with Atom N450 is rather slow, though could possible act as a dumb terminal along with her 23" monitor.
5. Musical composition and multitrack audio studio (hence Ubuntu Studio, but this is not required for the complete system, I could use this only on my laptop)
6. No need for special gaming support
Assets;
- soon-to-arrive Zotac Zbox i7-4770T 16GB mini desktop with SSD intended to cover as much as the above as possible.
- Latitude D630 (not terribly long for this world) with a 23" monitor
- Dell Mini with Atom N450 (not powerful enough on its own to run a browser with many windows, Libre suite, etc) with a 23" monitor, keyboard, mouse
Alternatives:
A. Virtualbox with separate VMs for myself and my daughter. The Virtualbox instructions for accessing USB, audio, serial, etc seem straightforward, though as I'm currently using a USB ZWave controller and will be using audio (perhaps SPDIF), one-wire, and other hardware interfaces, I would like to know what hw peripheral experience others have had before going too far down that pike.
B. MultiSeatX approach (which is not straightforward for even regular Ubuntu much less Studio), or
C. 1 user local, 1 remote; Letting my daughter use the Zbox as her computer with me utilizing a remote logon (FreeNX, etc) to access the home automation runtime, development, personal use from the older laptop. I am assuming I can leave a desktop process running the OpenHab runtime on all the time, just reattaching to it via FreeNX when I want to make any adjustments.
D. KVM (update: thanks TheFu!): (I need to look into this more, though lack of video playback would preclude it's use for camera video playback)
Thoughts, cautions, suggestions, humour?