Keyboard and Mouse Sharing

Note

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This page it out of date. It should be updated to include barrier as well

Overview

Synergy is a brilliant piece of software that doesn't require much effort to get going, Though faultless autostart did require some configuration.

So What Does Synergy Do?

I can now use my favourite keyboard & mouse to operate two computers (synergy will do plenty more computers if you have them) one at a time of course...

With two machines set to load synergy when they boot it doesn't matter what order the server or the client is booted in.

Synergy uses next to no system resources and even shares the clipboard as well!

Bug Awareness

Running Openbox, I can't make use of synergy until OB has loaded. But some Linux display managers you can use it before hand.

While it should already be fixed, there is an old bug that can produce 1-2 second black screens. For most this is fixed by issuing the command

xset -dpms

If necessary, the command can be placed in ~/.xinitrc so the problem never appears.

The Synergy Server:

Installation:

Rather than me duplicating it, the Archwiki has a great page on Synergy installation.

Configuration:

My /etc/hosts file follows which should speak for itself:

192.168.1.3             rightpc.localdomain  rightpc         ## the HP server
192.168.1.6             leftpc.localdomain      leftpc          ## the iMac client

Synergy.conf

Here is a great start (a complete solution in my case) for a very smoothly running pair of machines (easily edited for more though), via one mouse & keyboard being connected to the synergys server - this synergy.conf is the server configuration file which does the job faultlessly for me:

#synergy.conf

section: screens
	leftpc:
		halfDuplexCapsLock = false
		halfDuplexNumLock = false
		halfDuplexScrollLock = false
		xtestIsXineramaUnaware = false
		switchCorners = none +top-left +top-right  +bottom-left +bottom-right 
		switchCornerSize = 0
	rightpc:
		halfDuplexCapsLock = false
		halfDuplexNumLock = false
		halfDuplexScrollLock = false
		xtestIsXineramaUnaware = false
		switchCorners = none +top-left +top-right +bottom-left +bottom-right 
		switchCornerSize = 0
end

section: aliases
leftpc:
192.168.1.6
rightpc:
192.168.1.3
end

section: links
	leftpc:
		right = rightpc
	rightpc:
		left = leftpc
end

section: options
	heartbeat = 1000
	relativeMouseMoves = false
	screenSaverSync = false
	win32KeepForeground = false
	switchCorners = none +top-left +top-right  +bottom-left +bottom-right 
	switchCornerSize = 4
end

This synergyc.conf file suits my uses perfectly, I found it on the Arch wiki, & it needed no functional modification. I put it in /home/handy as a <.dot> file i.e. ~/.synergy.conf .

The Synergy Client(s):

Install synergy

sudo pacman -S synergy

Client /etc/hosts:

Edit the /etc/hosts file, mine is below for those that do need to reference, & if you do make sure you compare it with the server side one posted earlier on this page:

192.168.1.6     leftpc.localdomain               leftpc          ## the iMac client
192.168.1.3     rightpc.localdomain             rightpc         ## the HP server [/code]

~/.xinitrc

Add the following to the ~/.xinitrc file (guess how I copied it?):

synergyc -d ERROR rightpc

Conclusion:

The server is where the hardest work is, beyond that it comes down to getting your auto-start sorted so that it just works no matter which machine(s) come on in what order. For me the above works in that regard perfectly once Openbox has loaded.