Linux

I do unsynchronized multi-boxing, with toons in different clients in different roles so sending the same keystroke to all windows could be very bad.

That said, you seem to be on the right track.

Can't remember if this was covered before somewhere else, but I launch multiple EVE clients from the command line, and apply a flag to force unique virtual desktops. This is the command I use inside the EVE installation dir (.../CCP/EVE):

.../CCP/EVE $ WINEPREFIX=~/.wine-eve wine explorer /desktop=name1,1920x1080 bin/ExeFile.exe

WINEPREFIX is used to specify a specific wine profile I have just for running eve. Then I call wine, run explore (the wine version) using the /desktop flag, which spawns a virtual desktop with the name 'name1' with the resolution of 1920x1080, and run bin/ExeFile.exe which is the actual eve client (bypassing the launcher). If updates are required the client will tell you about it and restart with the launcher.

To have multiple virtual desktops, change 'name1' to something else, so in a different console tab, in the same directory, I might run this:

.../CCP/EVE $ WINEPREFIX=~/.wine-eve wine explorer /desktop=name7,1920x1080 bin/ExeFile.exe

Then I move that window to a separate virtual desktop, and use the standard desktop manager hotkeys to tab between them, and I found that to be an adequate enough solution (not at the point where I have more than two of the same ship types for PvE activities).

I can run three clients (in non-major fleets) without major fps drop - fourth client tends to start getting things bogged down due to CPU limitations (it only got four cores).

As for isboxer like, I don't know any solutions that works on Linux.

I have an offensive question for you.

Are you trying to log in at the same time with two characters from the same account? Or you're trying to login both a TRIAL account *and* a SUBSCRIBED account at once?

It's offensive because even my pen holder knows that you can login only one char from the same account at a time - just as training a skill can be done on only one char per account at once.

Yes, you need two accounts for multiboxing to work.

Yes, damn icelanders, swimming in our money. That was their plan from day one.

One trial and one subscribed. Thanks!

I knew about the restriction that only one character at a time from each account could be logged in, but not about the trial account restriction. CCP can certainly make whatever account restrictions they want, but the error message could have been clearer -- and if I had an ISK for every instance of that in EVE, I could afford a cluster-full of POSes.

Thanks for the message!

I've been thinking more about the use-cases. It finally struck me [whap!] that keyboard keystrokes are a relatively small part of the problem. The big part is mouse actions, and there's a limit to how parallel one can make two ships' display contents. Target lists, for example, will often be differently ordered, so a click that selects a particular target from one ship might select a different target from another ship.

Ctrl-Alt-F7/8/9 to toggle between ships would make only one ship visible at a time. I'm more inclined to put each ship on a separate screen, of which I have four (though I've run EVE, so far, only on two of them, the other two being driven by a considerably-lower-performance display adapter card). That way I could shift my attention from one ship to another just by turning my head, and with no display-rebuilding load on the computer.

I wonder whether I could replicate the mouse pointer on both ships' displays and use a function keystroke to choose which ship(s) get each mouse-click? Could I perhaps use a function keystroke to jump the mouse pointer from ship to ship, rather than have to scroll the mouse pointer by hand?

Clearly a lot of possibilities to explore, even after I get the basic tech working!

As for EULA constraints: the ISBoxer "Is ISBoxer Allowed" page links to a Forum message from a GM from 2010.04.23 that seems to give considerable leeway. (It's message number 274 on that Forum page - don't know why the link doesn't land directly on the message.)

Aha! I use trackballs. I already have four of them in front of me, just in front of my keyboard. Right now I'm using one for each of the four physical boxes at my desk, but I could repurpose one of them, at least experimentally, to give me a second pointer-device for the second ship.
Thanks!