Solid Block of Ise

Do you have multiple computers on your desktop? If you’re anything like me this happens from time to time. Alongside my main computer for example, I occasionally need to have my laptop on my desk. If you’re a computer-nut in any way, shape or form then the odds are in favor that you know what I’m talking about.

Multiple computers, each with their own (or several) screens. Each requiring you to switch between confusing sets of keyboards and mice. If this is the case with you, then you need Synergy.

Synergy is a neat, free/open-source application available for a number of different platforms. It runs under various UNIXish environments (such as Linux, BSD, Solaris and so on) as well as Windows and MacOS X. What is it? Well, it’s difficult to describe but essentially it’s a kind of software-KVM.

From the Synergy homepage:

Synergy lets you easily share a single mouse and keyboard between multiple computers with different operating systems, each with its own display, without special hardware. It’s intended for users with multiple computers on their desk since each system uses its own monitor(s).

It runs over a networked connection, so the computers intended for use with Synergy needs to be on the same network. This mini-HOWTO is intended primarily for Linux-users since that’s what I’m running, but I assume the same principles can be applied to any OS. However, I have no experience with the clients for other OS’s and thus cannot take any responsibility for instructions for them.

Synergy under Linux is a command-line tool. This is rather daunting for most users, and thus the QuickSynergy front-end is a very useful tool for anyone who prefers a GUI tool instead. Even I as a seasoned Terminal-veteran find the GUI front-end a lot smoother to operate.

The operation of Synergy is quite simple. A server is started with the indication of the physical placement of each client. Basically it’s their network names, in most cases it’s the netbios name provided your setup has such. Mine does, I like netbios in that way.

First, you’ll need to install it.

Do the command

sudo apt-get install quicksynergy

in a terminal. This will install the QuickSynergy front-end and pull in Synergy through dependencies.

Other Linux-distributions will have to use their own package-manager, provided Synergy and QuickSynergy is included in it.

Next, fire up QuickSynergy. The first you’ll see is this window below, set to the “Share” tab.

It’s fairly self-explanatory. The icon in the middle represent the server, and each box contains the name of the computer and the physical placement of it’s monitor. Notice that the name of my laptop (named “laptop”, yeah, very original name I know) is in the right-hand box, since it’s monitor sits to the right of my main monitor. When you’re happy with it, click start and minimize the window.

On each of the connecting clients you instead of the Share-tab click the Use-tab. Then input the name (or IP-adress, or whatever) of the serving computer. Click “start” and it’ll connect to the serving machine and everything will be done.

Now, you’ll probably not notice any change whatsoever. Synergy works very subtly in this way. But try moving the mouse-cursor to the edge of the screen, and it’ll move over on the screen of that client. Just like magic! Then you can use that computer just as if it was connected to your normal mouse and keyboard.

Enjoy, and I hope this helps people with multiple computers.

License

This work is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 Sweden License.