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DeskHop – Fast Desktop Switching

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Re: DeskHop – Fast Desktop Switching

#171

I’ve been using a software solution for this for over a decade. It’s called Synergy ( https://symless.com/synergy ) and it is fast - switches instantly over wifi and also works across Windows/Mac/Linux.

Synergy is great, its widely used on complex lab equipment where different parts are controlled by different PCs, sometimes running different OSes.

Re: DeskHop – Fast Desktop Switching

#172

I’ve been using a software solution for this for over a decade. It’s called Synergy ( https://symless.com/synergy ) and it is fast - switches instantly over wifi and also works across Windows/Mac/Linux.

No one has mentioned ShareMouse yet? (https://www.sharemouse.com/) In my experience it has worked way better than Synergy. I switched after getting fed up with the synergy developers not responding to various multi-year old bugs that made the software unworkable for me (e.g. https://github.com/symless/synergy-core/issues/5992).

The only downside is that you have to "renew maintenance" to continue receiving updates to ShareMouse after a year. But I haven't done that yet and it still works fine for me.

Re: DeskHop – Fast Desktop Switching

#173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

barrier is basically a dead project now. The active members of the project forked it and are going to release when ready but https://github.com/input-leap/input-leap Keep an eye on that for anything new

How much ongoing development is needed for something like this? I've been using synergy/barrier for years and the features I need have changed barely if at all during that time. Seems like a prime candidate for "finished" software.

Barrier doesn't support Wayland, which is a pretty big missing piece at the moment for Linux users.

Re: DeskHop – Fast Desktop Switching

#174
post #96

I had the same need and ended up using a USB Hub that required manual clicks to switch between devices. All software-based or network-based switches were a no-go in my case. I love the idea of a hardware-based switch that allows for seamless transitions between devices. Who will pick up the gauntlet and allow those of us without a soldering iron to buy a ready-to-use box?

Already exists.

https://www.cdw.com/product/siig-4-port-roaming-km-switch-wi...

Re: DeskHop – Fast Desktop Switching

#175

I’ve been using a software solution for this for over a decade. It’s called Synergy ( https://symless.com/synergy ) and it is fast - switches instantly over wifi and also works across Windows/Mac/Linux.

With VR headsets and increasing 8k TV affordability, screen real estate is really getting big. Technies almost always have a laptop, phone, and home desktop up at once, often have some media/fileshare, and then there are VMs to further the complexity. Here's what I've been wanting for years: a big ass 8k wraparound monitor, and it has clickable widgets in the desktop to turn on the computer/VM and activate the displa…

> With "cores to spare" in modern Moore's law scaling, I should be able to have several OSes seamlessly running at once, not the virtualbox stuff or other clunkiness, a much more seamless experience. There's a lot of hardware/CPU features to support it, but of course the OS vendors/distros have no prioritization to do something like that. It's also a fundamental failing of IoT.

No. The hardware features that allow running multiple OS's at once is what VirtualBox/QEMU/HyperV/Xen/etc. use, and those feature require a privileged OS to manage it.

The hardware does not support having multiple OS's manage the machine at once - even if they could be made to run, they'd step on each other and make hardware crash as they all try to configure it differently at the same time, and with them all in ring 0 they'd be able to arbitrarily compromise each other. Plus, you'd be annoyed that each of, say, 3 OS's could only use 1/3rd of all resources - 16 cores and 64 GB of RAM may seem like lot, but 5 cores and 21 GB of RAM does not.

It's a dumb idea. Just get a better OS, a better hypervisor, better "fastboot to other OS" features (say, 1-5 seconds "hibernate and resume other OS"), or another desktop.

Re: DeskHop – Fast Desktop Switching

#176
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was a concern for me, that is why i've used Synergy over VPN and it worked quite well. It also works on networks where you can't reach the other pc's that way.

tailscale makes the VPN easy these days.

I doubt the reason for avoiding connection is a technical barrier but rather a security one. For example, I prefer to keep my personal and work laptops completely airgapped.

Re: DeskHop – Fast Desktop Switching

#177
post #171

I’ve been using a software solution for this for over a decade. It’s called Synergy ( https://symless.com/synergy ) and it is fast - switches instantly over wifi and also works across Windows/Mac/Linux.

Synergy is great, its widely used on complex lab equipment where different parts are controlled by different PCs, sometimes running different OSes.

My first use of Synergy was in the mid 2000's, using the same KB/Mouse on a Windows XP machine with a Debian desktop box next to it. Worked fabulously for a long time.

Re: DeskHop – Fast Desktop Switching

#178
I use a single monitor, keyboard, mouse for both work and personal and need to switch between these pain free. I haven't come across a seamless solution as most of the software ones rely on mulitiple displays. My current solution is 3 button press on each device (monitor, keyboard, mouse) to switch.

Re: DeskHop – Fast Desktop Switching

#179
post #170

After going down the hellish rabbit hole of KVM and thunderbolt dock shopping, I started to fantasize about doing a project like this. So many horror stories of cheap electronics frying your ports, the switch adding input delays, etc. It's not that I didn't want to shell out the money, but it seemed like all the recommended solutions were either ancient (still had VGA connections) or were enterprise grade (close to $…

If you have a monitor that can serve as a USB hub (pretty easy to find) and has a thunderbolt input (less easy to find but there are options), you can hook multiple machines up to the monitor and use `ddccontrol` to toggle the monitor's active input. The devices hooked up to the monitor via USB can then follow the monitor to any of the connected computers. I have my mouse, keyboard, and webcam plugged into my monitor…

Damn, I didn't know usb on monitor was a thing. This could work for me if I get a new monitor since I use a single display for multiple boxes. Maybe I could try Synergy too with the ddccontrol command

Re: DeskHop – Fast Desktop Switching

#180
Another solution is to simply run a VNC server on one of the desktops, and a VNC client on the desktop that has your keyboard and mouse attached.

This is super flexible, as that computer can now be in another room or building.

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