Ever wanted to share a keyboard and mouse across multiple computers?  Here’s how.

Let’s face it.  Using one set of peripherals for a bunch of different computers sucks.  Swapping your keyboard/mouse back and forth is a royal pain.

There are two solutions.  The first, some of you will be familiar with.  It’s called a KVM.

A KVM is a physical device.  You plug your keyboard, a monitor and a mouse into it.  Some of them also need to be plugged in to AC – others just draw power from your computer.
USB KVM’s tend to be quite flaky.  On the other hand, PS/2 is long outdated.  I can’t really suggest using a KVM unless you absolutely have to.

The second solution, and in my opinion, a much more elegant solution, is a piece of (free!) software.  Now before I discuss it I must point out a few things;

• Unlike a KVM, there is no shared monitor.  This means that all of the computers running this solution are sharing a keyboard and a mouse, but must have their own monitor.
• Being software, it is prone to software errors.  If you’re not familiar with the OSI model, it is comprised of seven layers.  Each layer can represent another thing that can go wrong.  When a piece of software must work perfectly across a network, on two or more machines, that’s seven six layers per computer and one layer shared between the two computers, in which things can go wrong.  (The one shared layer would be the physical layer.)  If you’re not following, don’t worry.  It’s the same risk you take when you rely on any networked application, and you need to be aware of that.  As such;
• If your router should die, a cable become unplugged, or one of the computers turns off, the product will cease to function.  This is obvious but bears stating.

Okay, enough!  The software, then, is Synergy.  Get it at http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/.
I will be posting a follow up to explain at length how to set it up with two computers.
Then I’ll make a video, just in case.

‘Till then.

Originally posted 2009-08-06 02:56:47.