(This is quasi general, but probably is not relavent to platforms that
don't yet support virtual wscons consoles.)

I happened to run across someone that I hadn't seen in a few years.  He
was then (and is now) a LINUX user, and we discussed some things about
LINUX & BSD.  I was surprised to learn that he valued virtual consoles
quite highly, even given X and screen (the LINUX equivalent to window(1)).

I tended to assume that virtual consoles only useful for people who didn't
have X (or were, say, debugging/developing a new X server) and couldn't
use window(1) (which for the most part is more powerful than virtual
consoles, I think).  One feature stood out as interesting, however: He
said that he could run an X server on each virtual console.

My initial thought was ``Why on earth would you do that?''  But on
reflection: There are a number of programs (admittedly mostly games) that
run poorly, or not at all, unless you put them on an 8bpp display (24bpp
is too easy, I guess...*grin*).  (Examples of running poorly are xcruise
(horrible performance on 24bpp) and some(?) mpeg players which seem to get
the wrong colors if they are given a truecolor display.)

Besides, I can bump up the resolution to my card's limit if I only use
8bpp, and some things are noticably faster.  (^&

So, I was wondering how (or _if_) one can go about starting multiple X
servers under NetBSD.  Are virtual consoles needed at all?  Or is all of
this covered in a FAQ somewhere?



  "I probably don't know what I'm talking about."  --rkr@rkr.kcnet.com