How to use with multiple people and multiple monitor, multiple controller

[Jack109s]

I want to make display and control guest OS like ubuntu with multiple people.
They need to use different a keyboard and a mouse, a monitor from just one windows macine by using virtualbox.
And if it is possible, Can Host watch each monitor?
Please teach me.

[socratis]

So, let's say that you have 5 people that want to use their own VM. Are you planning on attaching 5 keyboards, 5 mice and 5 monitors on one computer and have 5 VMs running in parallel? With each one having a single dedicated keyboard, mouse and screen?

Can your host handle 5 of each? Especially screens? I have a high end MacBookPro-retina and it can handle a maximum of 3 screens...

[Jack109s]

Yes, That's it. these monitor and keyboard, mouse are connected from just one computer. and The host computer have VMs. how can I do?

[socratis]

How many monitors can your host afford. Independent monitors that is? 2?

[Jack109s]

Now the host connect one monitor. but I will get about 8 monitors and want to connect with my host.

[socratis]

Can your graphics cards / motherboard on the host support 8 different monitors (plus one for the host)? That's what I'm asking. There are not that many cards out there that can support too many monitors, not more than 4 per card as far as I know. So, you'll need two really high-end graphics cards, plus your host's low end graphics card, if available.

For the keyboards and the mice... You could use USB filters and capture one keyboard/mouse for each of your VMs. Because of the way that the USB filters work, it would be best if all keyboards and mice were different from each other. Different manufacturer/model I mean. You can't have 8 keyboards/mice that are exactly the same, the filters will get confused.

So, if you want to have 8 VMs, you'll need 9 monitors, 9 different keyboards and 9 different mice. And a really powerful host. Are you sure you know what you're getting into? And may I ask... WHY?

[Jack109s]

Thank you fro reply politely.
My motherboard is intel H170 and my graphic card is GTX1070 8GB. maybe it support 3 monitors.

I want to open PC school. and I want to make environment many people can work on same place cheaply.
Further I have to watch and teach many students from host.

Do you have any idea?

[mpack]

Do you have any idea?

Even leaving aside the lack of connection ports: if you run 8 users (8 graphics displays, 8 keyboards, 8 mice) then each one will be much less than 1/8th of a good PC.

I don't see why you want them to be VMs. VMs are intended to make use of resources that would otherwise be idle, a VM cannot make more resources available than the original PC had. Hence your VMs are going to perform poorly.

If you don't mind lower performance then I'd have thought that a better bet was 8 old (second hand) PCs. It sounds like a good cause, so it's quite possible that those PCs could be donated.

There are network protocols (team viewers) that can allow a teacher to remotely share a computer display, that's if simply wandering around and looking is not enough!

[zatz]

If you don't need to use Windows, Raspberry Pis using PiNet could be the solution.

See https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/teaching-pinet/ for information about PiNet. And https://www.raspberrypi.org/education/ for the education resources for Raspberry Pi.

[mpack]

I suppose it will depend on what this school is intended to teach. Coding for Linux could map well onto Raspberry Pi. Internet of Things maybe. Less so if the intent is to teach Microsoft Office or coding for PCs.

[Jack109s]

Thank you for reply.
the computer use for use browser, youtube, coding on cloud editor, photo edit.
I think Rasberry Pi is low spec for these use.

[mpack]

Actually a Raspberry Pi 2 might surprise you, AFAIK it should be capable of all those things, possibly doing it as well as any VM. But, the only thing it can't ever do is run PC software, since it has the wrong CPU for that. So if you wanted the training to ever touch on PC specific subjects then an RPi would be out of the question.

[Martin]

But an RPi would work perfectly as a RDP client connecting to VMs running on a Virtualbox PC.